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Mares is back!!!!!!!

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
It can take a long time to get an up-to-date response or contact with relevant users.
In order to answer the question of the origin of mres bband guns I went back to my old Skin Diver magazines. I started with issue one (December 1951), and the first ad I found for Mares band guns was in the May 1954 issue. I made a pdf, but am so far unable to copy it to this page. Any ideas on how to do it?
Howard
 
Reduce the pixels and resize it, also i find it easier to reformat to gif or mpeg i tried to upload a few pics that were 250 + kbs but somehow they dont work...

Hope this helps

Peter.
 
Hopefully attached is the Mares ad in the May 1954 Skin Diver magazine. By then they nad band, spring, and CO2 guns.
Howard
 

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  • Mares 1954 50-50.jpg
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Reactions: Jonny250
Your research skills are absolutely brilliant Howard! I'd love to browse these old mags.

However, I would assume based on the Mares practice in the 50 odd yrs after the advert was published, those drawings(!) refer to band guns distributed not manufactured by Mares.

Anyway, keep your chin up, on your quest to the origins of the arbalete you are only some decades short

Please refer to
Pulvenis, la chasse au poisson (1940)
Deveau, peche au fusil sous-marine (1943)
Costeau, par 18 metre de fonds (1946)
etc., etc., etc.

Of course, you appreciate that Mares was established only in 1949 (by the Austrian(!) expat L.Mares, if I am not mistaken).

Cheers
 
...and where did they get the rubber from? [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber]Rubber - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

Groupermadness said:
AMF??? are they not a Italian concern?? and did they not own Harley Davidson in the 70s??.
Click to expand...
I worked for a small company in the UK one Summer that was part of AMF. I was told that it was a big, very diverse American conglomerate that was involved in everything from bowling balls to tobacco.
 
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you guys must be kidding, with all the talk about romans, french , english etc.. it was the ancient Egyptians of course who invented these things just like they invented everything else... theres a mummy of a spearo in the cairo museum, with stringer, float and all still intact inscriptions on the wall of my pyramid also provide conclusive evidence of this...and thats like 000's of years ago not the 40s and 50's
 
Reactions: island_sands
they also had the first apnea club, the "ramses apnea club" in Thebes wow im getting really into that stuff now..
 
Sorry Marwan, but as you probably know the brittans were toying with Apnea tecniques 10,000 years bc by throwing people into bogs and seeing how long they could hold their breath, and we have archealogical evidence to prove this with numerous " Bog People" found in Britian ,Germany,Denmark, so we do have the upper side on this..........

Peter.
 
Na, Na you boys gotta all wrong its the Cubans, yeah you read right the Cubans that got the whole spearing stuff started...er, eh I'm putting the research together now...get back to you soonrofl
 
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hteas said:
Hopefully attached is the Mares ad in the May 1954 Skin Diver magazine. By then they nad band, spring, and CO2 guns.
Howard
Click to expand...


Here's a question the old farters with the narrow tube in front and back, as pictured below, seem very streamlined compared to the fat tube concept most seen these days- Why did they change the design?
 

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  • Mares 1954 50-50.jpg
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Marwan said:
they also had the first apnea club, the "ramses apnea club" in Thebes wow im getting really into that stuff now..
Click to expand...
Now, seriously:
I hate to say that, but indeed the ancient Egyptians invented freediving and that's for true, no joke. Look at the man under the ship:

The ancient romans just copied and improved the egyptian intuition: in facts the military Navy of the Roman Empire had a special unit of divers for attacking enemy ships and salvage wrecks.
Funny enough, the brave and specially trained diver-soldiers of the roman navy were curiosly named "Urinatores" rofl
 
Reactions: island_sands and Marwan
settingsteel said:
Here's a question the old farters with the narrow tube in front and back, as pictured below, seem very streamlined compared to the fat tube concept most seen these days- Why did they change the design?
Click to expand...

quote me if i am wrong, but i had one not unlike the top one and it was fairly thin and not as long, i guess because it was spring loaded, as far as i remember the tube flooded and i pushed the shaft in, not unlike the pneumatics now, only then to get enough power and push it was a fairly long spring, my grandad used to open the back cap and remove the spring for me to clean it, a ritual after each days diving. Ps it may still be in the attic at my parents home in pompey.

Peter
 
I've got it now, all that money I've spent in gear it was Marwan's fault (or his ancestors are to blame), all that time I thought were the Polynesians.
 
yup i told you so guys and as you can see from the pics, no fancy masks, long blade fins or camo either
 

Wow thats interesting so they were not are but rather springs...I would think a narrow pneu, would be great!
 
These spring powered spearguns were heavy like an anvil and noisy like a jackhammer.

Cheers
 
Yea, there was a small leather washer/ring and when it slamed into the stop it was louder than hell, I called home and asked my brother to describe the one there and it was not a spring compression but stretch, he said the shaft is inside the body of the spring and you push down untill it catches in the trigger mech over half way down the tube/barrel and on release it compresses and throws the shaft out, he embedded the shaft head (no tip) (i remember it being twin prong) in about 3 inches into the turf from 10 feet, not bad for an old gun. but it was rainy and soft he said. and rusty as hell.
 
I have an old Cressi spring gun from the 60's/70's? Spear has trident head!
 
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