Nothing stays the same but a Campfire buddy recently gave me a big stack of vintage American Hunters from the mid-70s (as well as some Gun Facts magazines from the 68-70 which were the only years I think it was published.)

It's fascinating reading and some stats to compare my March issue of AH with the April 77 issue. Some stats

Pages - today 72 / then 66
Pages of Ads - today 27 full pages / then 1 outfitters page and Winchester on the back cover.
Articles - today 6 full length / then 16 articles
Average feature article length - today 3 pages / then 5-6 pages

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The writing then was very good, as is some of it today, but they covered some much more diverse aspects of the sport and included falconry, some light and not so light gun smithing and small and large game.

Some of the articles I found a little suspicious in their validity but those were the days and the scopes. sick

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It was interesting time for sure and it's clear that for some things prices have risen out of proportion to inflation (this would be about $10k in todays dollars and still a heck of a deal!)

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The election issue for 76 was interesting with letters from Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter addressing the issues of the day. It was crystal clear, even then, that the Democrats were all about gun control in the name of false safety although the demon of the day was the "Saturday Night Special" and not the EBR.

We live today with some great writing and magazines and as someone who subscribes to 1/2 a dozen I don't think the medium is dead but it is interesting to look back and see where our roots came from.

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