Saturday, June 04, 2016

Saturday Morning Surfing

It's been raining for the past two days, and the weather-weenies tell us that another drenching is on the way.  So be it.  The Thorn Valley Shootist Society is not meeting today, due to the weather.  We shoot in an enclosed barn, but the road in to the range is sketchy at best.  We've decided to let it dry out before we try to get back in there.

So, I'm surfing about, and someone on the Book of Face led me to a page concerning Buck Taylor, an artist and actor who has been making his living for several decades in front of a camera.  Lots of folks may not realize that Taylor is also an accomplished fine artist, with drawings and paintings to his credit.  Some of us may remember him mainly from his acting career.  Some recall Newly, from the Gunsmoke series, and others recall him as Turkey Creek Jack Johnson from the movie Tombstone.

Which leads me to one of my favorite clips from that movie, which introduces us to his character.



It's a great little clip with tons of magnificent dialogue. "He crawfished a bet and called me a liar."

But, I'm looking at his hat, which seems to be a campaign hat of some kind.  We know that the movie is set in Tombstone, AZ and the clip occurred historically sometime before October 1881.  Here's another picture of Taylor wearing that hat.


I'm looking at the crease on that hat, familiar to many of us as the campaign crease, or Mountie crease, or the Smokey the Bear crease, and I''m wondering if it was authentic to the early 1880s?

The quandry comes in because I'm looking for a tan hat correct to the period, and I'm not sure what crease, if any, was used on common hats of the period.  What do y'all think?

5 comments:

Peter said...

From my research for my recently published Western novel, I found that creasing varied from area to area. Some regions creased fore-and-aft; some in a four-crease pattern; others didn't crease at all. Furthermore, the fashion of the moment varied, so that a region might change its crease pattern over time. This led to some mortification among those who'd already creased their hats in one style, only to find that it was no longer in fashion. Since you can't un-crease a Stetson, they had to either live with the out-of-fashion crease, or buy a new hat - a not inexpensive exercise.

Old Grafton said...

Major D, you just go ahead and use any daggone crease or no crease as you please and tell yer critics to "Draw, you Varmint!!" LOL

Old Grafton said...

And I had to check off over 30 images before yer blankety-blank verification system believed I'm not a robot. The damn pics are too small for my old eyes! I love yer blog but it's a PITA to send you a simple kudo!

Matt said...

Boy, I love that movie!

Old NFO said...

Agree with Peter, and do which ever one you like! :-)