To build the book required ten years of research online, and 50 years of first-hand experience in the gunleather industry. But it wasn't realistic to try to fit all the tiny details into the book itself. Oh, sure, there was space, but I couldn't let it get bogged down with words when the full color images are what set this book apart from all others on the subject. Above, Sam Myres' original steel stamps from his El Paso years; so, after his founding years in Sweetwater. N

A recent thread on a holster forum reminds me, that some folks fight, for the right, to carry AIWB. Often there will be a challenge, "name me one time someone has killed himself that way". "Dead man walking", I call it. Well, here are MANY TIMES . And lots more of them when you Google the simple phrase 'shot in groin' although you'll also turn up stories about third parties shooting folks there. Here's one that's just arrived November 2024 (I see I haven't kept the date

My daughter was a newborn when Sesame Street appeared and she would recite that line in her car seat. Here I'm inspired to use it because the topic is: the so-called 'FBI Tilt' cited on the Kramer Holsters website - and holsters are the 'conjunction' between pistol and gunman. I've already shown you that this carry angle is not ten degrees! So let's graphically show off the angles you think COULD be ideal, using a clip-on Myres holster that is from his earliest gunleather

For years I operated on the theory that Paris Theodore's designer was not him, but instead a another New Yorker named Bob Angell. I know almost nothing about the latter man, but the knowledge that he was hired away from Chic Gaylord by Paris in '66 is now a matter of record: Paris' recently released auto- biography; posthumous of course because he died long ago. Above, said to be Seventrees' shop. Notice the horsehide 'strips' they're called, in background. Is Angell one

After my three adult children, of course: the Bianchi No. 9R-2 shoulder holster. Although, full disclosure, because I'm a Trump voter they don't speak to me! Merry Christmas? Below, the early 9R-0 by JB, at right the 9R-1 here still pat pend. The scale will fool the eye because the 9R-0 is for the S&W 2-1/2" K frame that is itself larger than the 9R-1 for the S&W 2" J frame: The 9R-2, for which mid-70s I blended the best of the Berns-Martin inverted shoulder holster calle

I now repost my famous Unsafe at any Speed headline while noting that their copy of the Bucheimer-Clark holster will finally be in Holstory's third edition -- in the form of a consumer warning. I would have taken it down long ago but the maker refuses to update his holster. It just doesn't get any better for Ardolino's "dealer" (I used the term advisedly because she is his grand daughter Mary). Here's her feedbacks through today, reflecting her efforts to sell the should

That really is the correct way to say that, because the headline is from a Glenn Miller single of 1944. Even the year is perfect for 'our' Jelly: I understand from an FOH that there is a thread running on FB about Jelly Bryce. Today I reckon I have the only complete reference library about Jelly Bryce and his mysterious (no more) wife Sandra Bryce nee Minnie Kirkman. Prior authors didn't ever know who she was! The storyline is that perhaps another Jelly revolver has been f

I keep track of publicity linked to me, and that led me to this very interesting website that has on display, the appearance of Chic Gaylord on TV's "What's My Line" in 1960. I won't steal the chap's thunder by downloading the video (but I do have the tools for that) and instead am posting his link. The image below is not clickable, the link follows it. https://www.sportsfirings.com/?p=27012&cpage=1#comment-147153 I suppose I could work out how to get his page to start w

"Lone Wolf" Gonzaullas, 1940s Texas Ranger, is a legend and he left behind many artefacts including his engraved pistols and holsters. I've collected images of most of them and so present them here; inspired by my revisiting the Sterling holster that is now clearly identifiable as the maker of Gonzaullas' pair that is on exhibit at the Texas Rangers Museum that he helped found. This 'money belt' aka 'the scout belt' was a staple of the Texas Rangers at the tail end of the 1

Independent research tells us when a gunleather company appeared, and then disappeared, in the form that we know about it. This is worth learning for collectors because the makers themselves were 'flexible' about their founding dates because if only once they made a holster then that day often is used as their 'since' date. Think about J.M. Bucheimer, whose 'Since 1884' is before John Maurice Bucheimer was even born; instead it was the founding year for his father's company

Poor old SIG, they've allowed Safariland to throw them under the bus alongside their competitor Glock. Reading this link below you'll at first think there's a SIG problem but the problem is with the Safariland holster and it is VERY OLD; as in 'beginning of this century' old: https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2023/09/12/sig-sauer-safety-bulletin-light-bearing-holsters/ Below a hard copy for when the link comes down (and it will): Look deeper through my blog list and you'

If you're old enough you'll recall the Spencer Tracy film "Bad Day at Black Rock" and this post is about Blackrock Leather Conditioner. All in all it's an OK product, which then would have left me with "Gunfight at the OK Corral" but that didn't appeal to me. Real magazine writers get their product for FREE from the manufacturer, in exchange for a positive write-up which is nothing more than publicity. I'm not a magazine writer and I don't follow this practice; as being ins

I've finally made the time to scan through Paris' book, which is written in the first person as an autobiography would be; although published now substantially after his death in 2006 . There are a few bits and bobs in it of interest to a holstorian including how he came to be in the holster biz. But when I reached the chapter in which he lists his various murders of men and women 'in the line of duty', including one of woman during a sex act with her, I reached over and dr

Below, 'what is a spring': "something that is not inside a Lawman shoulder holster" Cancel culture, anyone? Below, Lawman Leather's 'dealer' (actually the grand-daughter of the founder) CANCELLED my order for a second Dirty Harry Shoulder Holster! AND HERE'S THE LATEST ON EBAY FEEDBACK FOR LAWMAN'S 'EBAY DEALER' WHO IS, INSTEAD, ARDOLINO'S GRAND-DAUGHTER! That final one is from me, you'll notice, and her other buyers have treated her no better: Below is a page destined for

PDFs represent the tiniest fraction of my holstorical holdings that instead are nearly all JPG images, for ease of visual searches for, say, the appearance of a particular model in a company's catalogs. The PDFs are only useful to me because they c/b word-searched. And here they take up the least space on the blog post vs. the JPG images of their individual pages; so I have many, many more articles but not in PDF form: Books : Book Excerpts: Articles : Articles about Antiqu

Those words were first written by a young woman who asked around the Lawman Leather shop, assuming that my missive to her father's company was from some no-account 'captive' gun writer for the industry press; an enthusiast who din't kno 'nothin'. I had mentioned I was the producer of "Holstory -- Gunleather of the Twentieth Century. Not good enough! It seemed. "Never heard of you", she said. Which puts me in mind of this terrific scene from "Some Like It Hot" , a 1959 fi

At his death Elmer left a lot of guns and gunleather in his estate, including a shoulder holster I made for him at Bianchi in the '70s. Dunno why he would've kept it. Elmer is someone that holstorians take most seriously because of his role in the development of the Berns-Martin 'Speed' holster in 1930, when Elmer and John Berns had a look at Elmer's forward draw holster by E.E. Clark and decided they could do better! Clark disagreed! And the first surviving Speed holster

The Lewis holsters are as well-known as their Clark counterparts, and are less commonly encountered on auction sites if one wants to collect them. And very hard to tell apart from the front side! But, doggone it, we know f-all about who Lewis was or his company. UNTIL NOW. Thanks to a friend of holstory who has shared the only known Lewis Police Equipment catalogue, the owner/operator has been identified as Adolphus E. Lewis born London, England in 1895. He first appears

The two restored posts in PDF form address what a holster is truly FOR, and how creating a new design is less-than-obvious for 'normal' people. All the great gunleather designers were/are straight white males and sexually obsessed (so if that's not you, don't even give it a go: because if a pistol is a penis (Freud) then a holster is a pussy). Before Chic Gaylord the IWB simply didn't look like this. But it sure has ever since: Yet if your designer/maker is not a member of

I'm restoring four blog posts about Rogers and Safariland Kydex into a single post. They're not gunleather but they are relevant because Rogers single-handedly destroyed demand for large scale production of gunleather -- beginning with his technology's takeover of businessman Neale Perkins' Safariland product line. Neale is a businessman not a holster enthusiast so he saw no harm in the switch for purist reasons, any more than Remington did by introducing the Nylon 66 rifle