LL Bean Pintail drake photos

Tom Modin

Tom Modin

Well-known member
I am repairing a bird that I worked on six years ago. It was a pintail drake originally before the tail snapped off and I added a new one. After six years the paint is pretty rough and the guy who hunts it is not easy on gear. He is wanting me to repaint it as a drake this time. Anyone have any photos of some of the earlier pintail drakes? or any drake schemes? I am at a loss and wanted to keep it somewhat what it looked like when it was released
 
thanks Duane, will take that into consideration. I forwarded it to the owner I guess he will make the final decision. fixing and restoring the old decoys is as much fun as carving a new one
 
Here you go, i have it on the shelf if you want other angles let me know. This is an original bird that has never seen water, my guess is mid to late 80s.
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That Pintail sure looks like a Cabela's decoy to me. The older LL Bean Pintails (1980's and earlier) were basically a Mallard painted as a Pintail. I may be wrong..... Nice looking decoy!


Tim
 
As I looked at it, I did think that it didn't match all of the other Beans in my collection...It came as a part of a collection from a friend who had passed on in 1997. Every year he bought one pair of LLBean decoys of a different species and kept them on a shelf rather than hunt them. As best I know, that pin was purchased at LLB but of course its possible he strayed from LLB one year, the thought hadn't crossed my mind.

Now I'd be curious to know if anyone knows if it is a Cabelas rather than a bean for sure?
 
An LL Bean Pintail from the 1980's or before is one of the few that I don't have. I will look in my old LL Bean catalogs and see what I cam come up with and also look in my North American Factory Decoys book later today.

Tim
 
Bill, Tim is on the money with that one, that is a Cabelas decoy. Besides the body shape the head tail and keel where all slightly different then the LL bean. I had about 18 of them at one time. If I am not mistaking Cabelas closed them out years ago at like 49.00 a for either half dozen or dozen. Just my.02
 
The decoy pictured in this thread is not an LL Bean it is a Cabela's decoy.... I went through some old LL Bean catalogs and the LL Bean is what I mentioned earlier, a Mallard Decoy painted as a Pintail. I do not know how to post pictures because an old catalog from "The Decoy Shop" started by George Soule, supplied the decoys from the 1980's up until the 1990's. Then after the "Decoy Shop" closed, Coot Decoy Co. made the cork decoys for LL Bean for a while.......
I enjoy the little discussions like this. It has been fin and informative for all of us......


Tim
 
Agreed- that's a Cabela's from the late 80s- used to have a bunch of them.....They sold the pintails ( hens and drakes) for cheap around 1992? I bought a bunch of them and repainted as mallards and blacks.
 
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