I have no idea why the mere words "Wild West" and "Old West" conjure up such images of adventure, but they do. When I was a young boy we played "cowboys and Indians" and fought who got to be sheriff. Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday were practically household names to us. I read German author Karl May's books about the Wild West and relished the adventures of Old Shatterhand and his friend, the noble Indian chief Winnetou. Although May, who had written his cowboy and western adventures in the late 1800s, never ventured farther West than Buffalo, his books felt real and we loved them. Later, I watched the television series "Bonanza" and many others like it, fascinated by all those stories of the old west and how people lived in those pioneering days.
As a young adult I still loved Westerns and was a big fan of Sergio Leone's "spaghetti Western" films like the "Man with No Name" trilogy, "Once Upon a Time in the West" with Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson and Jason Robards, and, of course, movies with the incomparable John Wayne. I enjoyed the hilarious humor and drama in Westerns with Bud Spencer and Terrence Hill. Later I fell in love with movies like "Tombstone" with Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer and, especially, Sam Elliott. All of them showed the old West in the same way. Cowboys, Indians, the Cavalry, old West clothes, old West outlaws, old West lawmen, old West guns, and the towns it all took place in.
When I moved to California and drove through the country I passed through Cheyenne and Laramie, Wyoming and those two places, together with several other Western towns, personified the Wild West to me, like Dodge, Santa Fe, and so on. It was almost magical. I saw the Cartwright family's recreated Ponderosa ranch near Incline Village on Lake Tahoe and that brought back memories of "Bonanza," and then Sutter's Fort in Sacramento, close to where the California Gold Rush began in 1848, another part of Wild West lore.
There is only one problem with all this. Much of what I had seen in all those movies was a romanticized, glorified and rather one-sided Hollywood version of the Old West. There were, of course, cowboys and Indians and tents and guns and the cavalry. But it wasn't all gun-toting cowboys and tomahawk-throwing Indians. The real Old West was quite different and much more down-to-earth. It was an exceptionally turbulent period of time when the Western part of the United States was settled between the Civil War and the end of the century. Much has been written about the Old West, but it was mostly by writers who did not actually have first-hand experience. Those who actually partook of the Old West experience were usually too busy to write about it.
I still love Westerns, but these days I am much more interested in reading how the Old West really was. I have a small library of books describing life back then, including all the adventure and hardship - the good, the bad, and the ugly. Many of those books are painstakingly compiled from various newspaper and eyewitness accounts. Some are a bit dry. But occasionally you come across a real memoir, the story of a real lawman of the Old West, one of those rugged characters who was chasing outlaws and trying to keep the peace. This is when it all becomes more than just history, when the Old West comes alive with cattlemen's associations, hired guns, horseback cowboys, cowboy action shootouts, gunfighters, stampedes. It all took place, and it's terrific reading about it in the words of someone who was actually there.
Collector who enjoy exploring the past and the western culture, will definitely enjoy being surrounded by old west collectibles while discovering new horizons. Old west collectibles help collectors relive the past from those glorious times in history that they have only heard about. The weapons used in the old west come in a vast assortment of products and contain unheard stories that will ignite the imagination of the most avid collector.
Cowboys who could have possibly used items within your collection will engulf the mind of the collector and make them even more fascinating. Some old west collectibles with a collectors collection could include antique photographs, Colts, Winchesters, money belts, boots, saddles, chaps, spurs, and many other valuable souvenirs. There are plenty of highly popular western prints available that collectors constantly seek to add to their collections. Old west collectibles offer an advantage for collectors within the United States, because these collectors have a better chance to capture items from this period, than collectors from other countries. Other items that collectors are constantly seeking to add to their collections are leather belts, holsters, holsters with leather lacing, and gun belts. Some collectors enjoy collecting badges that include Texas Rangers Badges, United State Marshal Badges, and various Sheriff Badges.
The old west was a time in history that only lasted thirty-five years, but the appeal and memories of this period has remained with Americans for over a hundred years and it does not seem to be fading away. Collectors enjoy collecting items from this period and then taking their time to research the item as completely and as carefully as they possible can, which will enable them to possibly find hidden secrets with the item. If a collector comes across a badge that has "Tombstone Sheriff" deeply engraved on the front, then collector will almost automatically wonder if the great Wyatt Earp ever wore that particular badge. Of course, this would be a simply amazing item to come across, but researching such an item could possible uncover remarkable stories that the item has held hidden for hundreds of years just waiting for someone to come along and discover.
Old west collectibles include replicas, stagecoaches, stage props, fast draw pistols, peacemaker pistols, derringers, letter openers, pistols, rifles, tomahawks, poker chips, hats, and many more items that have not been listed. Some collectors collect entire old west outfits, badge collections, weapon collection, or even spur collections, but then there are those collectors that will collected any item that has anything to do with the old west in general no matter what it is.
There are a lot of old west collections that are specialized in old west law badges, and there are plenty historic frontier old western American badges to choose from on the market also. Other collectors will focus their collections on old paper items such as western photographs of mining towns, cowboys, outlaws, law men, miners, saloon, and a variety of other subjects that picture any old west form. They may also collect old mining stock, bill of sales, and other legal documents that are no longer necessary.
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