Easton present memento to Abbey Archery

Dec 08: It was a large thin white carton which arrived, quite unusual for our freight. It was delivered by FedEx, the men in the brown truck and brown uniform, with those hand held things that look like an Ipod. We were asked to sign on the flat glass screen and magically you see your signature appear before you.

When we got around to opening it, we could see through all the layers of protective cardboard, that it was a picture frame.

We started to get a bit more curious and more staff decided to gather and speculate what was inside. Finally, after what seemed like a long time, we discovered it was a presentation to Abbey Archery by our great arrow manufacturing partners, Easton.

This quite heavy carton had come all the way from Salt Lake City, Utah in the USA.

We all gave the citation the "once over" and someone read the words aloud on the engraved bronze plaque at the foot of the picture. "Easton 85th Anniversary Commemoration Presented to Abbey Archery in appreciation of your support".

The picture has an attractive black frame and the picture is actually a sepia style photo that has been cleverly and tastefully designed, on the left, depicting the late James D. ("Doug") Easton in the familiar pose, alongside the Easton delivery truck and on the right is his son, Jim and Jim's son, Greg side by side holding an arrow.

At the base of the picture are three arrows - two facsimiles of famous Easton shafts - a Four Footed Cedar shaft and a 245RT-X Aluminium shaft and the third shaft is an actual X10 ProTour Aluminium Carbon shaft.

Engraved on the spine of the X10 ProTour is "X10 ProTour (then the number 85 in a square) Easton Eighty Fifth Anniversary Edition. No 1 of 100".

When the number was read out, some of us instinctively corrected our colleague with "you mean 100 of 100". "No, Number 1 is definitely engraved on the shaft".

We all looked at one another and it slowly sunk in what we were privileged to have received. It was quite an uplifting and very happy morning. Our spirits certainly soared.

It was not long before we decided that this picture should be given pride of place in our front vestibule, as customers walk into our Castle Hill pro shop.

This recognition is not just for Abbey, but for all our customers whose loyal and valuable support has contributed to this presentation.

There and then, a note of appreciation was sent off to Greg Easton.

Check out Greg Easton visits Abbey Archery

There was no time to hang the picture, so it temporarily sat on the back bench in our pro shop, in full view of customers. It sat there and sat there, as we had no time to put it up.

Well the inevitable happened - a tool slipped and yes, the glass smashed and the picture was taken upstairs to our office area, out of harm's way.

This galvanised us into action and we went out and bought replacement glass and whilst the glass was off, we took some images and then hung the photo.

With the glass broken, we noticed the insert and point on the X10 ProTour shaft are actually gold - now we are not going to scratch the insert and point to see if they are gold plated or solid gold, but let's leave that a secret....or a mystery.

Check out Easton history