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Trial With Error: Heiser Catalogues (Full Chart)

I have posted on this blog, and in Holstory the Book, a simplified chart that shows how one can determine the date of Heiser catalogues, and now post the full chart. You'll see why I haven't done so prior; confusing! But what it shows collectors, is HOW the dating is validated while the simplified chart really only says 'take my word for it'.


The larger chart shows how, in order to make the numbering 'work', I had to assume that they issued only every two years at first. In my defense, the dates of Heiser's many, many address changes DO align and it was the Denver city directories -- I have them all thanks to a city librarian there -- that pull this all together while the company was also changing its corporate names. Kudos to the Heiser family who stayed on top of all this with the third party that gathered and printed the city directories.


Here's their first appearance there, 1875. Note the name of the operation which is not a company yet; that is, it was not incorporated during Hermann Heiser's lifetime (d. 1904). The two prior directories list Gallup & Gallatin instead, which was the saddlery that Hermann purchased in 1874:



Heiser 'moved' many times, according to the only other Heiser biographer who published the book Saddles & Gunleather; but instead, a Denver historian revealed to me that it was Denver itself that kept changing the city's addresses. Heiser itself didn't move buildings until the mid-20th century. You'll see all that happening in this 'master' chart that is an Excel file so lengthy that I had to screenshot it in pieces for you:


Above, the final iteration of the company that was Heiser-Keyston-Lichtenberger was well out of the gunleather business by 1968, and eventually the Keyston company shifted to Las Vegas where it supplied raw materials for outdoor equipment such as tenting and awnings. It doesn't appear to be in business today.


The last of the Keyston sons died in the mid-1970s and was living when the Heiser Building was torn down to make way for a bank. The important takeaway: the Heiser Building which address is noted on some Heiser catalogues was never the saddlery. That was still on Blake Street. Notice the Heiser name beneath the peeled-away Buick sign, and lone survivor Arthur Heiser who was the guiding force behind the shift to automobiles, then pulled them out and became a life insurance salesman:



To read more about it all in my book titled "Holstory -- Gunleather of the Twentieth Century

-- the Second Edition", click on the new link at top of page.


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