The Last Word on Holstory -- Holster History of the 20th Century

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.

Notably there was Chic Gaylord's book "Handgunners Guide" that is largely about his own gunleather. His 1960 book inspired me to become a gunleather designer for Bianchi in 1970 for two decades:

JB's 1978 book "Blue Steel & Gunleather" that also is largely about his own gunleather (such as all three holsters on the book's cover):

It's curious to me that JB, who owned one of Tom Threepersons' two Colt SAs, included an entirely incorrect biography of Tom in his book. That revolver is now in The Autry museum's collection along with a Threepersons STYLE holster that was not his, but Texas Ranger Gonzaullas'.

Roger Combs' 1984 book "Holsters and Other Gunleather". Roger was a Gun World magazine editor who got so little cooperation from the industry that we at Bianchi swooped in with our gunleather for the covers front and back:

And the "collectors' book that is not a history book", 1993's "Packing Iron" by Rattenbury, a museum curator who would've benefited greatly from my much later research; because one of his editors has acknowledged that Packing Iron is a photo essay and not a history (!):

These prior tomes to my book "Holstory" only skim the surface of the history of innovation in gunleather for the 20th century. But now adding to what I could include in the book itself, let me now proffer several HUGE documents that, with perseverance, can show you every fact you never heard of, about the men and women who were the players.

Below is my catalogue of newspapers.com articles, of which there are more than 1,000. Likely you'll need a subscription to use the clickable links inside the file, but when you do the links will take you directly to each article as it appeared in the then-new edition of that newspaper. Current through December 2024, I have all but ceased my research there. The file is organized in date order:

Clippings - Newspapers.com.pdf

Download PDF • 25.25MB

During the research process I also created what I call "The Chronology", which is an Excel spreadsheet sorted in two ways for my professional research use: one, chronologically, and two, by player. Three thousand five hundred entries! No one has ever shown me that they have successfully used these files for reference, but if you think about it, it's easy:

A. When you know a player's name, such as Sam Myres, you can find him/her and all his/her appearances in the literature as "Myres", listed alphabetically in a single column of the "Player" version. With that are each entry's dates and the original source that gave birth to my claims about them. Don't believe it? Find the source itself and review it for reassurance.

abbreviated player (3).xlsx

Download XLSX • 479KB

(ABOVE AND BELOW, BOTH FILES UPDATED APRIL 15 2025)

B, If instead you want to see how history in general (the macroenvironment) affected them, find the same fact by date in the 'Chronological" version. There you'll see how, for example, Hermann Heiser was affected by the end of the Civil War and Colorado Territory achieving statehood (the Civil War draft and his first trademark).

abbreviated chronologically.xlsx

Download XLSX • 466KB

I enter the information into the 'Player' sort of the spreadsheet. Then, to create the 'Chronological' version to ensure the existing facts still align with the new information, I re-sort the spreadsheet by dates. Doesn't align? I go looking to see what's wrong; for example, 'twas not I but the Heiser sons who got Hermann's arrival date in Colorado wrong: he and his partner Samuel Keystone arrived AFTER the Civil War not during it as claimed, according to a noted history of Colorado in which Hermann features. So it is correct in my Chronology.

The files are 'locked' though, which handicaps you because they can't be resorted like I do when I'm hunting. I do that only to keep third parties from altering them, then claiming they were always 'wrong' (yes, I do have one Texas detractor who would stoop to that).

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.