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When it comes to collecting antique hunting licenses from Pennsylvania, the antlerless metal plates issued for counties in the northeast region are among the hardest to find.
A metal license for Sullivan or Tioga County from the 1930s and 1940s, for example, is rare simply because there weren’t many issued. Perhaps the scarcest of all is an antlerless license from Sullivan County from 1924 to 1937, which can fetch more than $100 from collectors.
Even though the old licenses are hard to find, there is a place where they may turn up.
For the last 17 years, Jack and Bob Kester have held an annual hunting and fishing show in Clarks Summit that not only has all the gear of today, but many relics of the past. The show is geared toward hunting and fishing collectibles, including old licenses, shell boxes, lures, posters and much more.
Bob Kester, who is an avid collector of outdoor memorabilia, said there are always several unique items that turn up at the show.
“If you’re looking for it, no matter how hard it is to find, it might be here,” he said. “You don’t know what people are going to put out there, and that’s what makes the show interesting.”
And educational.
The vintage items reflect the history of hunting, fishing and trapping in Pennsylvania. Among the most popular pieces among collectors are old hunting licenses that date back decades if not a century.
Kester said many collectors like to assemble complete sets of antique licenses from the county where they reside or hunt. Kester has the complete set of metal antlerless licenses from Pike County, where he hunts, which ranges from 1924 to 1941 before the Pennsylvania Game Commission switched to a cardboard tag.
But it’s not only the age or county that makes an antique license highly sought after. The issue number has a lot to do with it as well.
“One year someone brought a 1959 Lackawanna County doe license to the show that had the number one on it. The first issue of anything is very hard to come by,” Kester said.
When it comes to licenses, the demand isn’t limited to hunting. Old fishing licenses are prized as well, especially the metal buttons that were issued by the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission from 1923 to 1959, before they switched to paper.
Kester said any of the fishing license buttons from the 1923 to 1925 are hard to find and one may command up to $400.
For two years in the 1970s the PFBC brought back the fishing license buttons and those are collectible as well. And in 2014 to today the agency began offering the buttons again, a move that Kester said rekindled interest in the antique versions.
Even some of the current licenses are sought after by collectors, such as the pheasant permit which was introduced last year. Elk licenses and otter, fisher and bobcat permits are also of interest, according to Kester.
“If you have one in the first year they came out, those are the ones that will be worth the most. Hang onto it,” he said.
Today’s regular hunting and fishing licenses likely won’t have much appeal among collectors, Kester said, because they are issued on yellow paper and they all look the same.
If the PGC brought back the metal license — like it did in 1995 to commemorate the agency’s 100th anniversary — it would generate interest among collectors.
“Years ago the Game Commission made a lot of items that interested collectors. Not only was it the metal and even the cardboard licenses, but they also used to print beautiful silkscreen posters on cardboard during the 1940s. Some of those could fetch up to $600 today,” Kester said.
And they might turn up at Kester’s show, along with anything else representing Pennsylvania’s hunting and fishing heritage.
