Yes they are a heck of a trap.
44mag that is a new 600, they are still being made today 45 years after the first ones. Not sure about the start date of the 650s.

Push ups, lots of push ups.

Last I knew John, we was trying to impeach the beav for bi-colluding. Not sure what it is, but it sounds dirty.

Great post Tim! Thank you and the Caven family for your contributions to the trapping industry.

Gary

To address the difference between the current 550 situation and the MB-650 - MJ-600 of the past:

First and most importantly, I greatly admire and respect Glen Sterling. A very, very smart man that was way ahead of his time in product development. About 25 or so years ago I was selling a lot of MJ-600's as fast as I could get my hands on them in fact. I was buying them through M&M Furs, Melvin Fluth who I believe at the time was the only distributor. We could never get enough to satisfy the demand but we would get in 20 or so dozen a week which were sold in advance. Then we hit a spell for well over a year that we couldn't get any and M&M Fur said they weren't being made. I did contact Glen at that time and tried to buy the name and rights but we were a long way apart on what he wanted and what I thought I could afford to pay. For those of you that are too young to remember this was a time when fur was worth nothing, trap supply dealers were dropping like flies, and anti fur activists were at their peak. In retrospect I should have bought the MJ-600 for Glen's asking price but at that point in the trade it was hard to look ahead a year much less 25 years and I had a young family to feed and wasn't in the position to take big risks.

After not having any MJ-600's to sell for over a year we decided to go ahead and produce a trap of that size. To me the strong point of the MJ-600 and the unique feature of it was the pan/dog set up. We stayed far away from that feature out of respect for Mr. Sterling. I would much rather have the MJ-600 pan/dog set up than what we have on the MB-650 but I didn't want to cross that line. There were other traps that we were selling at the time like the Northwoods #4 that had cast jaws and wire levers so we felt as long as we stayed away from the Sterling pan/dog set up that we were not infringing on their design. If I offended Mr. Sterling or crossed a line I do apologize, it was certainly not my intent. If Glen feels that I owe him a royalty I would discuss it with him as the only thing that we get out of life with is our reputation and I take that seriously. I don't feel as though we've cost Mr. Sterling any sales as his traps have always sold faster than he can make them. I would buy a truck load of them today if they were available. It is a fantastic product that I have personally used. Tim

Angela, I disagree with your post and welcome a good discussion. Exactly how are you equating the similarity between the Caven's and the Duke's?