Fine art joins the parade of wild and woolly Western offerings at High Noon

By Karla Klein Albertson for Antique Trader

The glory days of roundups and riding the range are long past, but the market for the Old West items and gear used by the working cowboy has never been stronger. An annual highlight in the field is the High Noon Western Americana Show & Auction, held Jan. 22-23 in Phoenix.

The High Noon outfit – run by co-founders Joseph Sherwood and Linda Kohn, and Danny Verrier, an expert in American Indian antiquities and Western fine art – is based in Los Angeles, but Arizona has proved a perfect location for the reunionlike gathering that draws experts and collectors from around the world.

“Arizona really identifies with the Old West,” Kohn said.

In 2005, the event moved to the Phoenix Civic Plaza, allowing the show segment to include 300 dealers selling $50 vintage braided cowboy quirts to $50,000 chief’s blankets. Saturday’s auction was held in the nearby Hyatt Regency Hotel.

“It becomes a whole-weekend event,” said Kohn. “People come Thursday and leave Sunday night or Monday. They haven’t seen each other for a year. We have seminars; they have parties. There is so much going on.”

The focus at High Noon has evolved over the event’s 15-year run.

“When we started out, we were just doing hard-core cowboy – saddles, bits, spurs,” Sherwood said. “It was all very brown and silver. Then we started mixing in more color with the posters and the Native American material.”

“The cowboy material seems to be running out, literally. It’s harder and harder to find. So we were especially pleased that we are doing more with American Indian and Western Art. The Olaf Wieghorst painting The Lead Horse, estimated at $25,000 to $50,000, brought $75,600. So that, for us, is a real coup, because that’s a market we’d like to get into.”

Sherwood also pointed out Emil Lender’s Days of Yore, which sold for $22,400 (estimated at $6,000 to $9,000).

“Lenders fell in love with the whole legacy of the West and spent a lot of time at the 101 Ranch in Ponca City, Okla.,” Sherwood said.

Another colorful tale involves Ashley David Cooper, who painted a reminder of life’s futility – a series of skulls wearing the hats of pirate, king, Indian chief, and others – described by Sherwood as “like the Village People after a long night.” The San Jose, Calif., artist spent most of his time in saloons, often paying the tab by painting a nude for the bar. His “day-of-the-dead” oil painting brought $11,200 on a $2,500 to $3,500 estimate.

Cowboy gear, such as spurs, boots, bridles, and 10-gallon Stetson hats, remain the auction staple.

Silver-studded parade saddles are stars of the show. No saddle maker was more famous than Edward H. Bohlin of Hollywood, who produced some great gear during the Depression. A rare Bohlin 1930s youth saddle decorated with California poppy conchos and accompanied by matching headstall, reins, breast collar, corona, and bit sold for $95,200 – which far exceeded its $40,000 to $60,000 estimate. A gold belt buckle Bohlin made with his own initials, “E B,” brought $29,120, more than triple its presale estimate.

James Nottage, author of Saddlemaker to the Stars: The Leather and Silver Art of Edward H. Bohlin (1996), wrote pertinent catalog entries for this year’s sale.

“In the course of his career, Ed Bohlin created nearly a hundred different models of saddles withcolorful names such as the Fiesta, the Pasadena, the Mariposa, and many others,” wrote Nottage. “In the midst of the Great Depression, and having survived his own bankruptcy, Bohlin’s operation reached its height and his products were owned and used by everyday cowboys as well as the leaders of Hollywood, society, and business.”

Also on hand for the event was Western scholar Byron Price, who signed his beautifully illustrated book Fine Art of the West (Abbeville Press, 2004). Price has impeccable credentials: His father was a working cowboy and then went into the Western wear and saddlery business in 1955.

“Then I got in the museum business and was director of the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City – or the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, as it’s known now – as well as the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyo., both of which had wonderful collections of Western memorabilia,” Price said.

Currently director of the Charles M. Russell Center for the Study of Art of the American West at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Price realized the need for a serious volume and began his research.

“This book is focused on the material culture and gear of the cowboy – both real and imagined,” he said. As such, the volume is a resource for beginning or experienced collectors.

“There’s so much more to be done in the material culture end of things,” Price said. “I canted this book toward the aesthetics of this material because I don’t think many people even know about that aspect, much less bother to understand the origins of the decorative motifs.”

The book is divided into sections dealing with different sorts of gear, including metalwork such as bits and spurs, boots and hats, and saddles. He documents sources for the elaborate designs used by saddlemakers, tracing them back through Spain to Morocco and North Africa, noting “Once you start connecting the dots, you find out that all horsemen are brothers.”

To illustrate Price’s points, the book includes some of the best saddle photographs ever published as well as historical photos. For example, master leather worker G.S. Garcia of Santa Margarita, Calif., is shown next to one of his fine saddles in an image from the 1880s. Garcia went on to win a Gold Medal at the 1904 St. Louis Exposition.

Readers might be surprised to see Philadelphia featured in a Western book, but Price said , “John B. Stetson really created that whole Western hat ‘thing.’ He was a marketing genius and a very shrewd business man who saw a niche and filled it.”

Stetson shipped free samples to retailers, and his Boss of the Plains hat caught on.

The entrepreneur had to build a larger factory to meet the demand. His hats were well made, of the finest materials – beaver and other furs – and had a broader brim to better shed water on the trail. Cowboys added individuality with a special crease in the crown or a fancy hat band.

A Tom Mix-style beaver Stetson brought $2,240 at this year’s sale.

“The Autry Museum of Western Heritage in Los Angeles has a wonderful collection of trade literature related to Western memorabilia,” Price said, for collectors interested in doing some research. “They also have the papers of Edward Bohlin, who was one of the leading lights in silver parade saddle production.”

[Note that the Autry Museum of Western Heritage is now known as the Museum of the American West.]

“The pieces that have the most creativity and interesting designs always seem to win over the pieces that are merely historical,” Price said about auction results. “Middling parade saddles will go for about 10 times as much as a really fantastic historical piece that didn’t have a great design.”

It would appear collectors have elevated cowboy trappings from utilitarian gear to an expressive art form.

Most people’s image of the cowboy, of course, has been principally shaped by Westerns on television and at the movies. High Noon does a brisk business in costumes and gear associated with famous screen portrayals of the hard working cowpoke.

“This is about the third year in a row that we’ve hit a home run with the celebrity guns,” Sherwood said. “Baby boomers have such a nostalgia for everything from the age of 20th-century Westerns.”

Two shotguns and a derringer from John Wayne’s 1971 movie BIG JAKE sold for $27,440 (estimated at $6,000 to $9,000). And who could resist Marlon Brando’s revolver and rifle from ONE-EYED JACKS (1961), which brought $7,280 or Steve McQueen’s TOM HORN (1980) rifle at $7,840? Both were estimated at $3,000 to $5,000.

“This may have been our best all-around sale ever,” Sherwood said. “Our gross was higher the year we sold the Roy Rogers saddle, because that piece alone brought $1 million, but in terms of just general strength, this is probably the best sale we’ve ever had – and the broadest in terms of fine art, American Indian, cowboy, just the whole mix.”

SOURCES AND RESOURCES

High Noon’s past catalogs with prices realized make excellent references for collectors.

Fine Art of the West by B. Byron Price (Abbeville Press, 2004) is a beautifully illustrated and well-researched reference for historians and collectors.

Saddlemakers to the Stars: The Leather and Silver Art of Edward H. Bohlin (University of Washington Press, 1997) by James Nottage offers a detailed look at the man that helped outfit such film heroes and horses as Hopalong Cassidy and Topper, Roy Rogers and Trigger, the Lone Ranger and Silver, and the Cisco Kid and Diablo.

More books on Western memorabilia are available from Gibbs Smith at (800) 748-5439 or www.gibbs-smith.com

Reprints of the 1938 Visalia Stock Saddle Co. and the 1942 Hamley Cowboy Clothing and Gear catalogs are available from Dover Publications, 31 E. 2nd St., Mineola, MY 11501-3852, www.doverpublications.com

Extensive collections of Western memorabilia can be found at the Museum of the American West in Los Angeles, (323) 667-2000, www.museumoftheamericanwest.org; and the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma  City, (405) 478-2250, www.nationalcowboymuseum.org

PRICES REALIZED

Brydon Brothers “Peacock” saddle, circa 1910 - $39,200
Custom G.S. Garcia spurs, Elko, Nev., circa 1900 - $20,160
Edward H. Bohlin’s personal gold belt buckle - $29,120
Horsehair quirt by Alfredo Campos - $8,120
Mexican saddle with silver snakes, 1886 - $22,400
Mechanical cowboy window display, Baranger Studio, 1950 - $17,920
Navajo red mesa rug, circa 1910 - $11,200
Nez Perce man’s pictorial beaded vest with American Flags - $24,640
Robert Redford’s “NUDIES” western suit and boots worn in THE ELECTRIC HORSEMAN, 1971 - $10,080
Three guns used by Lorne Green, Michael Landon, and Dan Blocker in BONANZA - $24,640
WINNING A BRIDE poster, 1919, Universal Studio’s Western - $3,920
Yakima beaded cowboy gauntlets from the Barney Sofro Collection (shown) - $3,690

(All prices include 12 percent buyer’s premium.)

Article provide with permission by High Noon LA, Inc.
www.highnoon.com • (310) 202-9010

Roy Rogers items sell for $412,000

The Arizona Republic
Tuesday, January 22, 2002

Roy Rogers items sell for $412,000

MESA- The sterling silver, gold-and-ruby-studded saddle prized by cowboy movie star Roy Rogers, sold together with a harness set for $412,000 at auction late Saturday at a Western collectors show in Mesa.

An anonymous bidder rode away with the 1931 saddle, bridle and martingale owned by the “King of the Cowboys” after spirited bidding among 30 collectors, event organizers said.

Another anonymous telephone bidder spent $187,000 for his classic chaps and gauntlets, and a third collector paid $61,000 for Rogers’ silver spurs and boot tops.

“There were a lot of people who wanted these items,” said Danny Verrier, a collector who helped with the Mesa event.

“These things are one-of-a-kind pieces and people knew that right away and wanted them for their own.”

In all, 30 pieces from the Rogers collection were sold during the High Noon auction and show.

Other Wild West memorabilia also up for grabs included Tom Mix’s Stetson hat that sold for $2,750, Rex Allen’s engraved Colt .45-caliber revolver for $6,050, John Wayne’s jacket from True Grit for $11,000 and Gary Cooper’s pants from the movie Dallas for $440

Article provide with permission by High Noon LA, Inc.
(310) 202-9010

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