Fun With Numbers

We all are on our guard when an antique image of, say, Texas Rangers appears online. They can be dated variously but with a bit of persistence one can find that same image in more than one place and settle on a date; and many are from MTG (Manuel T Gonzaullas who helped found the Waco museum). Those of you who are gun buffs will also look to the rifles, for example, in the image, not least because Winchesters in particular are easily recognised and dated from that.

I do that, too, even though I'm really only interested in their gunleather. Because knowing 'who did what and when' is essential to the research of holstory. This image of the Texas Rangers that has been alternately dated 1887 and 1888 of Company D, shows the aforementioned rifles but it shows something else that is worth dating: their gunleather.

All the men are wearing Olive Pattern holsters and they're wearing them on scout belts (hollow money belts with ammo looping). And they didn't get Olives from El Paso Saddlery in El Paso because, well, it wasn't founded until 1890. Yes, the original EPS had a predecessor so that's a possibility. Not from Myres in Sweetwater, he didn't found until 1898 and didn't ever make the Olive Pattern anyway; he made the cuffed varietal and no gunleather at all until 1930.

Heiser? Sure, if this image was taken in 1906. Which it wasn't. That's the year that Heiser began making gunleather, and they were far away in Denver CO.

Kluge Bros in Austin? W.T. Wroe same city, and both very near Texas Rangers HQ? 1886 founding for Wroe, not impossible, then. Kluge in 1886, too. Ditto. Brill? 1912 from Kluge Bros.

But founded in 1872, in Missouri, and the first of the mail order saddleries? All the holsters are most likely to be Wyeths. Sure, not obvious because of the distance involved but Wyeth had traveling salesmen who penetrated all the 'hardware stores' that sold guns and gunleather. Ready to hand, and cheap with the retailers forced to buy in dozen lots for each model. And Wyeth had a LOT of models, the Olive being prominent among them. By the turn of the 20th century: king of the printed mail order hardware catalogues. This retailer is illustrating Wyeths with the latter company's trademark Texas pear cactus imprint, 1902:

So if you want to win a bar bet, don't bet against Wyeth for the Rangers because the saddlers you've heard of from the era -- the ones in the Territories like Gallatin and Meanea -- were tiny and local. But Wyeth was huge -- largest saddlery in the WORLD it claimed -- and had retailers/dealers all over the U.S.

Yes, there were first- and second-quality versions of Wyeth's. The upper green square is of thin wax calf; the lowermost green square is of thick skirting leather. Now, notice that the price difference is HUGE. Then notice how much gold had to be liquidated to buy the dozen: 1/2 ounce that today w/b $2000 from your personal buying power.

At the top of every page of my website, is a link leading to my book with John Witty that is "Holstory - Gunleather of the 20th Century - The Third Edition" that now features the original book as its core, and is now buttressed by an all-new Prologue that is about the late 19th century's contributions to American gunleatherr, and an all-new Epilogue that features the 50 years of my personal contributions to innovations for many companies 1970-2020.