1930's center shot pyramid lemonwood longbow info..

[silent sniper]

Hey guys, I wanted to see if anyone knew anything about this style of bow. I found 2 of these at an antique shop and found their design very interesting. Instead of usual old american longbow style lemonwood bows, these are very different. They have long risers with center cut arrow shelfs. Dimensions were 66-68" long, 10-12" long riser, 2" wide at fades tapering to 3/8" tips and roughly 3/8" thick the entire limb. The bows looked to be made of lemonwood with an additional glued on riser piece. There is residue on the front of the riser where a glued on sight bracket used to be. The date stamped into the bow was 1937 by the cleveland arrow company.
Do you know anything else about this style of bow? Was it popular in the day? Thanks, SS.

 

[PatM]

Looks to be associated with Bill Folberth. Not sure if that was his company name though. He was from Cleveland and was actually likely the first to use glass in a bow and also developed the aluminum arrow.

You can find a lot of info online and examples of his bows.

[LittleBen]

That's awesome.

As a side note, for now on, ever time I hear someone ask if they can cut a shelf into their bow even though there's no glass I'm referring to this thread.

[PatM]

Here's a later Folberth from the Grayson Museum. You can see a lot of similarities.
https://anthromuseum.missouri.edu/grayson/modernarchery/1994-0946bow.shtml

[Jim Davis]

That's awesome.

As a side note, for now on, ever time I hear someone ask if they can cut a shelf into their bow even though there's no glass I'm referring to this thread.

Of course they can, but this is certainly not a primitive bow. Traditional, wooden, sure...

[mikekeswick]

That's awesome.

As a side note, for now on, ever time I hear someone ask if they can cut a shelf into their bow even though there's no glass I'm referring to this thread.

Note how thick it is.
You can not just cut into any bow and expect it to be ok with a large shelf cut out.  If the riser has enough wood to it to not flex fine but most people don't add the 'extra' to make up for what they are cutting out. A large shelf is a stress riser and most definitely a weak spot.
This bow is a good example of a pyramid design and would shoot very nicely.