Targets

According to myth, in ancient Greece, Hercules fired at point targets to demonstrate his accuracy and skill. And it is said that during the 14th century, the great Swiss archer William Tell became a legend by successfully shooting an apple off the top of his son’s head.

By the 1700s, wheel-lock muskets began replacing bows in public and private shooting matches. Early American frontiersmen, who relied on their rifles for hunting and protection, practiced shooting at a mark to sharpen their marksmanship skills. In many cases, the target mark was a charcoal-drawn black circle on a bark-stripped tree trunk or an X marked on a wood slab. Some early forms of competition in the U.S. were turkey shoots with the large birds as targets.

In the 1820s and 1830s, live pigeons were used as targets for trap shooting. Eventually, Americans developed artificial targets made from glass balls filled with feathers. Later, American shooters moved on to clay targets. With the 1871 formation of the National Rifle Association of America, metal targets that gave off a sharp clang when struck by lead slugs became the norm for competitive shooting. Bull's-eye pattern targets with center circles and divided into concentric rings were also used.

From the silhouette types employed by law enforcement and the military for training purposes to the official paper and cardboard versions used for competitive and recreational shooting, targets hit the mark at auction.