User:7Cypress

NEIL DOUGLAS COST

Neil Douglas Cost was born December 30, 1923, and died May 29, 2002. Born and raised in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, he was taught by Native Americans to fashion turkey callers from river slate and wood. Over the years, Neil continued to pursue his early childhood training of fashioning turkey callers into the epitome of both functionality and decorativeness with his original design "Boat Paddle" turkey caller being the most versatile due to its broad tonal spectrum. During his latter years his callers fetched upwards of $1500.00 each while the last turkey caller he made, appropriately dubbed the "Fat Lady," garnered $11,100 on an on-line auction site. In addition to penning numerous magazine articles and producing numerous products for turkey hunters, Neil Cost wrote three books in which he detailed the construction of each of his various styles of turkey callers. Like his turkey callers, each of his limited edition books (1500 copies of each) have become highly sought after collector's items with his first book, which was released in 1999, an entitled, "Making Turkey Callers in the Gobbler's Shop" the most sought. Perhaps most accurately, Neil Cost was referred to as the "Antonio Stradivari of handcrafted wooden turkey calls" in a front-page article of the November 22, 2000, The Wall Street Journal.