Restored Post 53: The 'Stagecoach' Brands

53 thompson leather

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Early in my time at Bianchi Holster, when the company was just a 30-man operation in 1970, into the shop came examples of a new product line marked Thompson Leather Goods. The products were the SOS but the styling was executed as if the designer's mandate had been to make every little style feature different from every other makers'.

The brand promptly disappeared, as did Bacon Holsters; both of the L.A. area and necessarily to be thought of as rising competition. I wondered about both for many, many decades and while creating Holstory I worked hard at finding out the story of the two companies. It was only recently then that I discovered C.A. Thompson's death in his factory early '70s. He appears to have been Bucheimer-Clark's VP immediately prior to forming his own company.

Bottom line is that many of Thompson's designs became part of Bucheimer-Clark's and J.M. Bucheimer's ranges It was unusual that BOTH companies would share new styles yet their individual catalogs and maker's markings on the holster backsides showed this happened.

The Thompson gunleather featured a stagecoach that is readily differentiated from other stagecoach stamps of the likes of Tandy Leather that by then owned the Bucheimer companies. Thompson disappeared as mentioned but several Clark Holster companies reappeared 1970s despite the formation of Bucheimer-Clark as a j.v. between the two families in the very late 1950s. And two of them featured the identical stagecoach to Thompson's right down to the 'T' in the coach's door.

Read more in my book titled "Holstory -- Gunleather of the Twentieth Century -- the Second Edition" that is available at www.holstory.com and printed for you/shipped to you in USA.