1972 アーチェリー (archery) by タイトー (Taito)

 

Name: アーチェリー (archery)

Year: 1972
Company: タイトー (Taito)

This is from a tweet by onemoretimec:

1972 listed as the year

this publication says 1973

archery range posted by Taito on their 70th Anniversary webpage.  (archive)
"日本初の自動アーチェリーセンター オープン"
(September 1972: Japan's first automatic archery center opens)

The archery range was installed in bowling alleys.  During the 1960s there were also archery ranges in bowling alleys in the USA.

One of the bows had been sold at auction.  This tells us that the bows were made by a company called American Archery from Oconto Falls, Wisconsin, USA.  60" is the size of the bow.

found via a cached auction page (archive)

Another bow, from this tweet by aw11tribology (archive): 

The American Archery logo appears to be printed in the same manner as the Taito logo.  I assume they were a custom order, and that the Taito logo was added by American Archery.

There is a lovely site that has the American Archery catalogues scanned and available online. (archive)

In the 1965 catalog, the company had a different logo, and were located in Clarendon Hills, Illinois.

In the 1966-1967 catalogue they are now listed as being in Oconto Falls, Wisconsin.  They still have the old logo.

This catalogue introduces the Flash model bow.

from the 1966-1967 American Archery catalogue

In the 1968 catalogue, we finally see the logo that matches the Taito bow, and we can clearly see the similarly-styled writing on it.

Flash is one of the few 60" bows ever sold.  In all of the catalogues it is the only 60" bow that looks similar to the Taito bow.  It is also advertised as being perfect for beginners, so it is an ideal bow for a bowling alley archery range.

Here is the Flash bow from the 1972 catlogue.  The only thing different on the Taito bow is that it does not appear to have the inset wood on the grip.  This inset piece appears on every other American Archery bow.

Flash bow by American Archery, from the 1972 catalogue

zooming in

If you have access to scans of  'Japanese Bowling Magazines' from the early 1970s I would like to see them.  I believe the Taito archery would be mentioned.

some of the magazines have wonderful cover art:

Just for fun, here is a bonus image from Life Magazine.  This is from the USA.

Archers and Bowlers at the Sunnyside Bowl (J. R. Eyerman-Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock)