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Barry Friedman - Ralph Lauren's Blanket Dealer
737 Plays1 year ago
Once a comedy writer, Barry Friedman is one of the those collectors turned dealers stories that we love to hear about. What’s more fascinating, is that he’s really the only person dealing strictly in one category, which is antique Indian trade and camp blankets. This is one of those things where you have definitely seen them in passing, but you may not have known exactly what you were looking at. One of the original makers, Pendleton, has even recreated some of them to this day. Barry has found a healthy balance between collecting these for himself and making it his business. In fact, he's Ralph Lauren’s go-to when it comes to supplying these for his personal ranch in Colorado as well as his Double RL stores around the world. If you’ve ever had the chance to go into a Double RL store and seen these blankets, well, that’s Barry’s doing. Barry also was contacted recently to supply all the blankets for a huge Hollywood movie starring some of the biggest names in the industry. He’s truly an expert in this stuff, so much so that he’s a consultant for Pendleton, whose the only surviving manufacturer for these products. He knows more about this stuff than you would think is even possible. Here it is, this is Barry Friedman, for Collectors Gene Radio.
Barry's Website - https://barryfriedmanblankets.com/
Barry's Books - https://barryfriedmanblankets.com/book-chasing-rainbows/
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Transcript
Film and Blanket Connection
00:00:00
Speaker
Martin Scorsese has a movie coming out in the spring called Killers of the Flower Moon and it's a fascinating true story based on a book of the same name and they bought 60 blankets from me that are going to appear pretty much in every scene from what I understand. What's going on
Introduction to Collecting and the 'Collector's Gene'
00:00:21
Speaker
everybody and welcome to Collector's Gene Radio. I'm your host Cameron Steiner and I'm joined by my co-hosts and brother Ryan.
00:00:30
Speaker
This is all about diving into the nuances of collecting and ultimately finding out whether or not our guests have what we like to call the collector's gene. That's right. And as always, please subscribe and leave a review for us. It truly helps. We hope you enjoy the pod. Let's go.
00:00:53
Speaker
Once
Barry Friedman's Journey to Blanket Expertise
00:00:54
Speaker
a comedy writer, Barry Friedman is one of those collector's turn dealer stories that we really love to hear about. And what's more fascinating is that he's really the only person dealing strictly in this category, which happens to be antique Indian trade and camp blankets. This is one of those things where you've definitely seen them in passing, but you probably had no idea exactly what you were looking at. In fact, one of the original Maker's Pendleton has brought Barry in as a consultant to help recreate some of them to this day.
00:01:22
Speaker
Barry has found what I would like to call a healthy balance between collecting these for himself and making it his own business. In fact, he's Ralph Lauren's go-to when it comes to supplying these for his personal ranch in Colorado, as well as all of his double RL stores all around the world. So if you've ever stumbled into a double RL and seen these blankets floating around, well, those are Barry's.
00:01:44
Speaker
Barry was also contacted recently to supply all the blankets for a huge Hollywood movie starring some of the biggest names in the industry. He's truly an expert in this stuff, so much so that he's now written two books on the topic. He knows more about this stuff than you would ever think is even possible, so without further ado, this is Barry Friedman for Collector's Gene Radio.
Understanding Trade Blankets and Pendleton's Role
00:02:06
Speaker
Barry Friedman from Arizona, how you doing?
00:02:09
Speaker
I'm good. How are you? I'm doing well, thanks. We actually had a little bit of a hiccup on our recording, so we're starting over from square one, so I appreciate it. Not a problem. I'll be brilliant again. I'm sure you will. So let's go back to ground zero. So for those that don't know you, can you tell everyone a little bit about yourself and what you do? Yeah. Well, I was a professional comedy writer for my whole working career, and I'm retired now, and I'm no longer funny.
00:02:38
Speaker
And I've been dealing in American Indian blankets since 1969. So I think it's 53 years if my math is correct. And I guess I have to explain because I deal in a type of Indian blanket that is very unique. These were made for the Indians, not by the Indians. That's a little confusing for most people because most people are
00:03:04
Speaker
familiar with handmade Navajo Indian weavings. The blankets that I deal in are called trade blankets and they first started making them in 1892. These were made by commercial woolen mills run by Caucasians and they made blankets with
00:03:26
Speaker
What they thought were indian designs sold them to federally licensed indian traders who had their shop set up on indian reservations and so they would be in the indian traders store and indians would come in with whatever they had to barter and they would walk out sometimes with one of these blankets and they became very very popular with american indians.
00:03:49
Speaker
And they still are to this day so the only surviving manufacturer is Pendleton woolen mills in Pendleton Oregon and I am the vintage blanket consultant to Pendleton and I've written two books on these blankets. Amazing and those books are called chasing rainbows and still chasing rainbows correct.
00:04:13
Speaker
Yes, still chasing rainbows was a brilliant title that I still get teased about. I literally tried to think the title for about five years and that's all I could come up with. So like I said, I used to be funny, but I'm not anymore. So you were at one point.
00:04:30
Speaker
one of the largest collectors, if you will, of these blankets. And now you've kind of transitioned into kind of single-handedly largest dealer in these, is that correct? Well, I'm the only dealer that specializes in them in the world. There's other people who sell them. I have a very friendly competitor in Oklahoma, a lovely woman, and she is primarily a quilt dealer, but also sells these blankets.
00:04:56
Speaker
I'm the only total specialist on the planet.
Reviving and Authenticating Vintage Blankets
00:05:01
Speaker
And I was the largest collector at one time. I had, I think, at my peak, about 1,200 blankets. But I found out that colleges wouldn't take them for college tuition, and I wouldn't be able to set my children to college. So I started selling them. And fortunately, my children now have educations. Now you should have kept them.
00:05:25
Speaker
You're not wrong. And so what's the specific era of these blankets that you collect in, and I guess subsequently why this era? Well, they started making them in 1892. There was a company called Cap, C-A-P-P-S, in Jacksonville, Illinois. They were the first manufacturers. And the era for serious collecting ends, in my opinion,
00:05:54
Speaker
in 1942, which is when Pendleton was commandeered by the government to make goods for the war effort. So instead of Indian blankets, they made army blankets and sleeping bags for the armed forces. And so they made no Indian blankets at all. So that to me is sort of the golden era, that 50 years, 1892 to 1942.
00:06:19
Speaker
After that, I lose interest and my collectors lose interest as well. Although, in Pendleton's defense, they make gorgeous contemporary blankets. The American Indians still love them. It's just not really my area of interest. No, I mean, vintage stuff definitely has a lot more charm than modern stuff, that's for sure.
00:06:42
Speaker
Well, it's more challenging. Obviously I could walk into a Pendleton store and leave with as many blankets as I could afford the kind of blankets that I'm looking for. Sometimes I can go months without a single one. And then other times they rain from the heavens. So it's all serendipity. I never know what I'm going to get from one day to another. And so you mentioned that you're a consultant now for Pendleton. So in, in terms of that relationship, are they,
00:07:10
Speaker
coming to you for advice and design expertise to remake the old stuff or are they buying vintage stuff themselves? Well, they do not buy vintage stuff. When I have collaborated with them, I particularly collaborated on a series called the tribute series.
00:07:30
Speaker
which is designs that I supplied from other companies that Pendleton reproduced. I've also brought some blankets to their attention of their own that they were unaware they had made and I think probably the biggest home run they've had is a blanket that
00:07:47
Speaker
was originally called the Aspen. Now they've changed the name to the Silverbark and that was a Pendleton blanket that was made around 1910 and it has sort of escaped their notice after many years and so I brought them a rediscovered version and it became a very, very popular blanket for them. So they're pretty wonderful people there. They didn't have a real good understanding of
00:08:18
Speaker
their former product because they had had several fires at the one metal and changes in personnel, and they weren't that aware of their own history as far as individual designs were concerned. So I've brought a lot of those to their attention over the years. Very interesting. Are there fakes, you know, are there fake Pendletons? Are there fake caps, blankets? I mean, how do you timestamp these when you're looking for them?
00:08:47
Speaker
a lot of knockoffs and there are, as we just discussed, reproductions. Well, reproduction can have very fractional value compared to the original. You just sort of have to be familiar with them. It's sort of like a knockoff classic car. There are replicas, but they're worth peanuts compared to what the original is. So it's just experience more than anything else.
00:09:16
Speaker
Pendleton does reproduce a lot of their own patterns. And if they're used hard, they can look old pretty quickly. So it's just a matter really, again, of having looked at them and understanding them and knowing what's been reproduced. And how can you personally timestamp something that you're collecting or maybe you can't, but the difference between a 1905 blanket and a 1917 blanket?
00:09:41
Speaker
Yeah, well that's a little tough because some of the patterns were made for that long a period. So if let's say a blanket was in a catalog from 1911, I'm just picking that just randomly.
00:09:58
Speaker
The blanket could have been made for the company five or six years before that, five or six years after that. Mainly what we know is sort of a rough idea of how long these companies were in business and through catalogs we can sort of guess
00:10:17
Speaker
the period of time a particular pattern was made, but it all is a rough guess. We
Collecting and Cultural Significance
00:10:23
Speaker
do not have exact times when particular patterns were made. So as you mentioned, there's a huge misconception with these blankets, if you will, and most people think that they were made by the Indians for people like us, but it was actually opposite. Were the Indians making anything in return?
00:10:45
Speaker
Absolutely. Well, the Navajos are the only tribe that has ever taken sheep's wool and woven it into blankets or rugs. And basically what happened is commercial dyes became available. And that was the catalyst for massive
00:11:10
Speaker
Navajo rug production because they no longer had to go find vegetal items or in some cases beetles to make the color red. They used what were called cochineal beetles. They would have to smash beetles to get the red color. To get blue they used fermented urine.
00:11:30
Speaker
Unbelievable. So, with commercial dyes available, they didn't have to go through all that laborious work and urinate a lot in some cases. Right. So, this prompted Indian traders. Indian traders had sort of an odd thing. They were spending money to get
00:11:50
Speaker
merchandise to trade to the Indians and so they needed to put cash back in the system. So one day they had a bright idea. Oriental rugs had become the rage in the eastern United States and some Indian trader that remains anonymous had the bright idea that Indians could weave something that looked like Oriental rugs
00:12:15
Speaker
and people would put them on the floor and they would be successful. So you have to understand that before this time, the Navajos wove
00:12:24
Speaker
Very, very lightweight blankets, not rugs, blankets. Now the difference between a rug and a blanket is weight and size. You can take your rug and try to put it around your body and you're going to have a hard time. Whereas if you take the blanket off your bed, you can put it around yourself and it looks pretty good and it's transportable.
00:12:47
Speaker
So the Navajos had never made anything as heavy and durable as a rug. So this was a white guy's idea So they started
00:12:56
Speaker
trying to sell these rugs to Americans, the traders, and they caught on. So the Navajos switched their weaving entirely from the old style blankets to these new heavyweight rugs. Well, they still wanted to wear blankets themselves. And so they would make a rug and bring it to a trading post and they would leave with a lightweight, commercially made
00:13:20
Speaker
one blanket from one of these companies that made them for the Indians. So basically, since 1892, Navajo Indians make rugs for white guys, and white guys make blankets for Indians. Interesting. For me, the coolest thing about these blankets, and even rugs of this era, is all the variations, all the colors,
00:13:48
Speaker
on a painting may never make sense to somebody, but when you put all these blankets in a room, you know, in one single room with each other, they all look amazing. Well, they're very spectacular. Some of the patterns are absolutely transcendent and some are so complicated that you can't even imagine how they even designed them or what the designer was thinking. I mean, there's also colossal failures where you just go, okay, that blanket must have been made for a clown.
00:14:17
Speaker
So it seems like a lot of it was random. It's whatever dyes they had on hand at the time in the factories. But some of the designs are absolutely timeless. They're so beautiful. And some of these things were extraordinarily rare because
00:14:35
Speaker
At the time, they were highly replaceable, so nobody thought to keep them really, and they didn't have a lot of value. Navajo rugs have a long history. Navajo rugs and blankets have a long history of being valuable. So they were kept and protected and conserved. These blankets, not so much. And so anything that survives from 100 years old plus, it's almost a miracle that it's still here.
00:15:01
Speaker
And those are the blankets I'm looking for, and they don't show up every day. That's for sure. They're pretty hard to find. And a lot of blankets that I know were made, because I have pictures of them in catalogs, I've never seen a single example in the real world. So those are the ones that I sort of, you know, spend my life looking for. Those are sort of the holy grail.
00:15:27
Speaker
To ask a two-fold question based on that, one is, are you sourcing these blankets and products from places like eBay or trade shows and auctions and that sort of stuff? And two, being that they are from at least 100 years ago, have you ever came across duplicates of anything?
00:15:47
Speaker
Well, yes, I have run across duplicates. But that's usually only in the case of a very successful blanket that did so well that the companies would keep it in inventory and keep making it. They operated like any commercial company. You put a product out, and if it sells, you keep making it. And if it's a dud, you don't. So really, the great rarities are probably blankets that were complete failures on the market. As far as sourcing them,
00:16:13
Speaker
Gosh, I get them anywhere I can. eBay is not a primary source. There are very few good blankets, collector's grade blankets, in my opinion, that show up on eBay. And eBay descriptions are usually wildly inaccurate. The dating is completely wrong. They do not reflect the real condition of the blanket because people don't know what to look for as far as condition.
00:16:40
Speaker
So eBay, you know, if I get five or six blankets a year from eBay, that's a successful year. Most of my blankets find me because I'm the specialist in the field.
00:16:52
Speaker
I'm very well connected in the antique business and also the much more specialized American Indian business. I do four or five Indian shows a year. I know all the dealers. It's sort of a fraternity of people. We all know each other and most of the guys that run into them usually contact me because I am the specialist and I can tell them what they have and what it's possibly worth.
00:17:21
Speaker
Bear, I think one of my favorite achievements of yours on your resume or cover letter, whichever way you want to look at it, is your relationship with
00:17:30
Speaker
someone who's a personal hero to a lot of people.
Barry's Influence and Contributions
00:17:33
Speaker
And that's Ralph Lauren. And you and him may not be best buddies by any means, but I mean, you source, have sourced and probably still do all the blankets for his incredible ranch in Colorado. And subsequently you also source all the blankets for his double RL store. Is that correct? That is correct. We are not best friends. In fact, we have never met.
00:17:58
Speaker
I have dealt exclusively with Ralph's buyer for decades and Ralph has never lowered his social standing by meeting me. I've been invited to his ranch, but people are only invited to Ralph's ranch unless he personally invites them. You're only invited when he's not there.
00:18:19
Speaker
Because when he's there, it's him and his family and close friends, and he doesn't want any interlopers like myself. But that's an interesting relationship. My other relationship with a very famous person that I've never met is Martin Scorsese. Martin Scorsese has a movie coming out in the spring called Killers of the Flower Moon. And it's a fascinating true story based on a book of the same name.
00:18:47
Speaker
and this movie is gonna star Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Jesse Plemons, and I'm missing a couple other people, but it's a major, major movie, and they bought 60 blankets from me that are gonna appear pretty much in every scene from what I understand. I did meet Martin. He sent his costume designer here, and she spent several days here selecting blankets for the film.
00:19:17
Speaker
What a great experience. Well, I'm looking forward to the movie. I love Martin Scorsese movies and I'm going to like this one a lot more, I think. I can imagine why. And so, are they asking you to source specific blankets that you know of? I mean, how difficult was it for you to go and find these blankets for them? Well, this was easy because I had an enormous inventory of blankets and
00:19:46
Speaker
They wanted blankets specifically from the 1920s, and I had many. So it was my job to tell them what type of blankets the Indians
00:20:01
Speaker
American Indians would have been wearing this. This movie is specifically about the Osage Indians who live in Oklahoma. And I'm very well versed in what most tribes prefer. And so I pointed out the blankets that the Osage would have used during that time period and filled the order pretty easily. So they bought these from you. I mean, are they asking? Are you asking them to buy them back after the movie or?
00:20:32
Speaker
Actually what I suggested is that they donate them to a museum that is actually owned by the Osage Indians. I thought that would be the best thing for the blankets would be to be in a museum in Osage country and hopefully that's going to be done. They haven't kept me up to date. I'm out of that part of the equation but hopefully that will be the result. Do you remember how many blankets he bought from you for the ranch?
00:21:01
Speaker
Oh gosh, I have no idea because they buy a lot of blankets for me and they don't designate which ones are going to go to the ranch. So I can't really answer that question. Gotcha. So you're getting POs and it's just going something for Ralph. Yeah, exactly. It's something for Ralph and some obviously for personal use, but the great majority of them are certainly for resale in their double RL stores, which is where they sell vintage merchandise of all types.
00:21:32
Speaker
That would be very cool. It's a great idea. And so how many, how many blankets have you kept for yourself now that you're not necessarily a collector of these anymore? I'm sure you still see stuff that is kind of undeniable and it's probably hard to let go. Well, I've sort of, uh, I've sort of made the transition quite successfully to being a dealer. And I always want collectors to know that they are not getting my rejects that I'm building my own collection.
00:22:02
Speaker
and they're picking from what's left. I decided a long time ago when I broke up my initial enormous collection that I was going to be a real dealer and offer everyone
00:22:15
Speaker
everything that I got, which I do. I have 16 blankets that are on sort of a rack system in my office, and those seem to have just stayed there for years and years and years. I never sell anything off of them. None of them are particularly valuable. Well, I shouldn't say that. Some are quite valuable.
00:22:34
Speaker
but others aren't. They're just there because I'm too lazy to do anything with them or replace them. So I guess that's my collection which is 16 blankets but I always have at least 250 blankets to sell and some of those are one of a kind spectacular masterpieces. Would you say it's pretty easy to sell these blankets? I mean do you know who to go to and who's looking for these at all times?
00:23:02
Speaker
Well not at all times of course but I have a client list certainly and there's certain clients that want certain kinds of blankets and there's also clients that want specific blankets in a specific condition. I've spoiled most of my customers because I'm a condition freak and if it's not perfect
00:23:24
Speaker
I tend to shy away from them, or at least not value them as highly, and I shouldn't. Anything other than perfection is a step down in value. But I'm such a freak for condition that I've sort of spread that mantra to my collectors. So they're all spoiled rotten. Unless the blankets are absolutely perfect, they don't even want to talk to me. So you don't, in fact, buy
00:23:53
Speaker
any blankets that become available to you, even if they fall under your category or era that you do, you know, deal in condition is on the forefront of that.
00:24:02
Speaker
Absolutely. I'm really picky about conditions. A blanket could be extraordinarily rare, but if it's a wreck, it's of no use to me. It's sort of, I guess the analogy would be, if you have a Ferrari that's been in a head-on collision, it's a Ferrari, but it's scrap. And the same thing holds true for any kind of collectible. Condition is everything. Rarity is, you know,
00:24:29
Speaker
You know, that's debatable, but condition is undeniable. If it's a wreck, it's a wreck. Right. And being that these are obviously vintage and can be very rare, I mean, you can still use them, though, correct?
00:24:43
Speaker
they're totally usable. Most people,
Care and Preservation of Blankets
00:24:46
Speaker
you know, tend not to use them. They're wool, so there's, you know, women in particular, they find them a little scratchy. But there's another type of blankets that we haven't discussed at all. And those are called camp blankets, which I also deal in, and they're quite beautiful. And these were cotton blankets. Basically, they were rip off
00:25:07
Speaker
The wool trade blankets and most of these were sold through department stores and they're called camp blankets because kids would take them to summer camp and these would cost a dollar as opposed to the nine or ten dollars for a wool blanket and
00:25:22
Speaker
And I have many, many collectors for these. They can be really spectacular in design. And again, it's pretty much the same time period. The trade blankets were earlier, 1892 they started. With the cotton blankets, they started more like about 1910 or 11. And the blankets were huge sellers until about
00:25:49
Speaker
I would say the 1940s and then they started to become really kitschy and they started using synthetic materials in them. The ones that I buy and sell are 100% cotton and really beautiful and they're less money than the wool trade blankets. The top of the line on the cotton blanket is
00:26:10
Speaker
thousand to fifteen hundred, but most of them are far less. You can buy a really beautiful cotton blanket for five or six hundred dollars that's spectacular. And some, you know, the less rare ones you can buy for a couple hundred dollars. Wow. Amazing. And what's the best way for somebody to care for these blankets? I mean, are you, are you sending them to the dry cleaners? Are you,
00:26:34
Speaker
You know, hanging them up and letting them air out. What's, what's the best move? Because, you know, I'm sure some of them haven't been kept well, um, in people's homes, you know, all these years or in people's other collections. Well, there's a number of things you can do. Uh, the biggest problem with the world blanket is a moth.
00:26:55
Speaker
Depending where you live, moss can be a real problem or not. I live in Phoenix, Arizona. I don't have a problem with them. If I lived down a lake in Wisconsin, I'd be a little concerned. I avoid moth-eaten blankets, so I don't have them in inventory.
00:27:16
Speaker
They are a real problem for a lot of people and there are things you can do. A cedar chest is not one of them. Moss are only repelled by freshly cut cedar. Cedar chests are sort of one of the great hoaxes of all time. You can put blankets in a cedar chest and they will get devoured by moss.
00:27:39
Speaker
I don't send them to a dry cleaner. I send them to a specialist in generally oriental rugs. It isn't about washing a blanket. Now you have to understand these are wool. So wool is going to shrink and they will shrink even at a dry cleaners an inch or two.
00:28:00
Speaker
where they won't shrink is in the hands of an experienced Oriental rug cleaner. It isn't the washing of the rug that can be the issue. It's drying it properly. If you dry it properly, you won't get shrinkage. Wool is going to shrink if it's exposed to water. So I send them to specialists. Otherwise, you're going to end up with, in some cases, a doily instead of a blanket.
00:28:29
Speaker
Bear, if someone wanted to buy a blanket from you, would you say that your website's the best place?
Education in Collecting and Historical Insights
00:28:35
Speaker
No, the best place is to give me a call on the phone and then come and see them in person because I can explain the differences between the blankets. I can.
00:28:48
Speaker
answer any question and if I don't know the answer I'll bluff very effectively. But I've got enormous range of blankets here and they can sort of fit almost any price range.
00:29:02
Speaker
And I can explain the difference why one blanket is more than another, why one is maybe more common or rarer than another. And there were a lot of different companies that made these early on. And I can show the differences in the type of patterns that they did, the color palette they used. So I like to mentor people because I am really passionate about these things. It's not just about money. In fact, money is sort of the last thing I think about.
00:29:30
Speaker
I really love these blankets. I've written two books about them. And I wrote the books not to get, you know, I'm not Stephen King. These aren't going to sell millions of copies. You know, movie or play is going to be made. You know, I read the books because I want to spread information on these. I think they're magnificent. I think they're historical. American Indians still treasure them. And so I like to share information. And so when people come here, there's no obligation to buy whatsoever.
00:30:00
Speaker
I want to show them what I have and explain what I have. And if they're interested and want to buy something, that's fantastic. And if they don't, hopefully they'll leave knowing a little more about them and appreciating them. I love it. And would you say the best way to get a copy of your two books is by giving you a call as well?
00:30:21
Speaker
Yeah, my first book is out of print. I'm revising it. It was originally 304 pages and I'm going to beat it up to 450 or 500. And so that is an ongoing project. My second book is pretty much, well, I'm pretty proud of my second book. The pictures are much better than my first book to tell you the truth because we had digital cameras.
00:30:42
Speaker
and we did for the first book so the pictures are magnificent and my daughter is a professional television writer. She edited it for me under threat by me and there isn't a single typo in the entire book which is unheard of. It is unheard of.
00:31:00
Speaker
Yeah, I'm really proud of the second book and that one is available for me. The first one is out of print and it sells for far more than it retailed for originally. Originally, it sold for 50 bucks. Most of the copies that come up for sale are 175 or more and I've seen them as high as two or three thousand but I think those people are dreaming.
00:31:24
Speaker
I definitely am not going to lie and say that I don't have my eBay search for the first book, Chasing Rainbows, set up. Well, it does show up. There's a copy on there now I think for $175 and I think that's the only copy on there at the moment. Once in a while they show up actually for a reasonable price. I even bought a copy of my own book on eBay once.
00:31:48
Speaker
You ran out. I did. I think someone put one up for $40 and I snagged it immediately. Good call. So those are your two books, Chasing Rainbows and Still Chasing Rainbows. The second title is brilliant, Still Chasing Rainbows. It only took me about four or five years to think of that brilliant title. So I was very proud. When can we expect the revision of the first book?
00:32:14
Speaker
Ah, that's a good question. Um, hopefully within my lifetime, I've been working for quite some time and I always find one more blanket that I have to photograph. It should have been out about a year and a half ago. I'm still working on it. I'm hoping that it'll be in people's hands. Oh, with luck, maybe a year from now, but there's also a problem now with printing and,
00:32:39
Speaker
and getting paper and there's delays in the supply chain. So you can't get a book printed as fast as you could a while ago. It's difficult. It'll stay in a container or in a dock for a year or so. We'll see, but I am working on it very hard and it's going to be spectacular. Can't wait to see it. Thanks. I think it's going to be really good.
00:33:04
Speaker
Are the blankets in both books ones that you've sourced or are you going to other collections of these and photographing as well? Well, I definitely have relied on other collectors as well. So it is a compilation of both blankets that have gone through my hands and also collectors who have been very kind in cooperating. Dale Chihuly, the glass artist who has the largest collection of these blankets on earth,
00:33:34
Speaker
was kind enough to let me access his collection and basically every important collector in the world has been very generous in sharing their collection with me and allowing me to take photographs. So it's pretty comprehensive.
00:33:54
Speaker
Did you ever get the chance to meet any of the designers or people that ran some of these companies? Obviously not from the era that you collect because that was a long, long, long time ago, but you know, maybe some still early years. Did you ever get the chance to meet any of these people? Well, I would say that the, uh, the last link.
00:34:17
Speaker
to the era of blankets that I deal in was a very, very interesting gentleman named Mort Bishop Jr. and Mort ran Pendleton and Will and Mills for over 50 years. And I met him right around the time my first book was published, which was
00:34:38
Speaker
No, that's incorrect. It was later than that. I don't remember the year I published it. It was so long ago. But Mort, I feared, Mort owned Pendleton Willimels, his family, the Bishop family, had owned Pendleton since 1909. And Mort was a pretty formidable man. He was an ex-marine.
00:34:58
Speaker
He ran his company with an iron fist and he was sort of a great character. He had this fantastic voice. He sounded like he could have been in a John Wayne movie. But he wasn't someone that you fooled with. He was one tough ombre. When my first book was published, I was very concerned that Mort would find issue with it.
00:35:27
Speaker
And so I got a call, and I was told to meet him for dinner at a restaurant in California, which is where I was living at the time. And so I sat down with him prepared for the worst. I just felt like he had perhaps found fault with something in the book, and I was about to be read The Riot Act. And so he said, well, I've read your book. And I said, uh-huh. And he said, so I've got a couple things I want to tell you.
00:35:55
Speaker
And at this point I was shuddering because I was expecting now a avalanche of criticism. And he said, all right. He said, number one, you know more about my family than anyone in my family. And number two, half the Pendleton blanket patterns in your book. I didn't even know that we made and I'd like to order 5,000 copies of your book.
00:36:23
Speaker
Unbelievable. And then he paid for dinner as well, so that went really well. That's great. That was great. Mort was really sort of a wonderful man, despite the rough exterior. And he was the link to the blankets that I buy and sell. He was the last pioneer, I would say.
00:36:49
Speaker
Everyone else, unfortunately, had passed away. Some of my earliest blankets were purchased or acquired from the great-grandchildren of the blanket factory owners, but they were in their 80s at the time, and since, unfortunately, had passed away, of course. So that era of people is gone.
00:37:16
Speaker
So I was only able to meet maybe a few, but they were very important. They helped me a great deal with research and answering questions about their grandparents and their early recollections of the woolen mills. So that was fun.
Exploring the Collector's Mindset and Market Dynamics
00:37:34
Speaker
Very neat. All right, Barry, let's finish up here with what we like to call the collector's gene rundown. Sound good? Yeah.
00:37:42
Speaker
All right, so these are just a quick list of questions. You can answer them short, long, however you feel, all right? Sure. All right, what's the one that got away? Is there a blanket that maybe went, that auction that you missed or that slipped through your fingertips? Well, definitely. But the ones that I really crave are blankets that I've seen pictures of, historical pictures from 1895, 1900, where I've never, ever seen the action.
00:38:10
Speaker
Excuse me. I've never seen the actual blanket in real life. I've just seen it in a picture. So I know they were made, but I've never seen one. So those are the ones that would thrill me to find. How about the on deck circle? What's next for you in your collecting?
00:38:28
Speaker
Well, I think the revision of my book is my ongoing problem and challenge. In collecting, I'm always excited about them. I never know what I'm going to get at Serendipity. I might not get one for six months or I might get 100 tomorrow. That's always interesting because you have no control over something that
00:38:57
Speaker
is out there somewhere that may or may not find you. How about the unobtainable, one that you can't have, maybe it's too expensive or in another private collection? Well, there's no such thing as too expensive to a collector. If it's way beyond your means, you'll sell a major organ. You want both kidneys for that? Okay, let's do it. A real collector finds a way to purchase anything
00:39:26
Speaker
even if it's ridiculously priced, if they want it really badly, they'll do anything. So what's unattainable? Again, it's stuff that I see pictures of but I've never found. That's unattainable to me. So those are the ones I want. I don't really have regrets about things that I've missed or underbid or whatever. I've had pretty much every major blanket at one time or another and sometimes
00:39:54
Speaker
Multiples of the same blanket. So for example, there's a blanket called the happy hunting ground Which is the most valuable blanket there is and I have four of those right now Normally, I would have zero and I would have zero for years, but suddenly I have four so I can't explain it That's great How about the page one rewrite? So if you could collect one thing besides your current, what would it be and why? Oh gosh
00:40:23
Speaker
Money, no object. Yeah, money, no object, uh, probably art. I think that's what everybody ends up collecting that has too much money because no matter how wealthy you are, there's never enough money to really collect art. Uh, you know, even billionaires come up short. So I probably do that just so I can feel, you know, uh, broke. That's great. How about the goat? Who do you look up to in the collecting world?
00:40:53
Speaker
Well, there's a lot of people that I look up to, anyone with tremendous knowledge, and I would say in American Indian, I have a friend named Mark Winter, and Mark Winter is the champion, the
00:41:07
Speaker
the unconquered expert on Navajo weavings. And there are some real, real scholars in this field, but they all defer to Mark. Mark owns a trading post in New Mexico called the Todlina Trading Post.
00:41:23
Speaker
And Mark is the authority on Navajo weaving, and a very interesting person to boot. So I look up to him. There's another gentleman named Mark Sublette, who was a doctor, and actually was a doctor for the Phoenix Suns basketball team. And he decided that American Indian things appealed more to him than healing, I guess,
00:41:49
Speaker
players. He has a gallery called Medicine Man Gallery in Tucson, Arizona. He's the most active person in the world. He writes books, he does podcasts, he buys and sells more American Indian goods than anyone on earth. No one knows how he
00:42:06
Speaker
can do all this because it doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day. But he's a remarkable person. There's a lot of other people, too. I mean, there's some great, great people in the field. There's great collectors in every field and great experts. And I admire anyone who devotes their time to learning everything they can about a certain field. I think it takes enormous determination. And you're also, you need an understanding wife or girlfriend.
00:42:36
Speaker
I couldn't agree more. How about the chase or the sale? Do you enjoy the hunt more or the ownership?
00:42:42
Speaker
Oh, by far the hunt. Selling is the penance for buying. I think anyone loves selling this in the collectible field. I mean, you have to do it to sustain and keep going. But it's finding something where the adrenaline just goes berserk. So once you have it, it's like, OK, I got that. Now what am I going to get next? You sort of forget that you have it very quickly.
00:43:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's the hunt. And most importantly, do you feel that you were born with the collector's gene? Yeah, I will fill any space you give me. So if you tell me my new home with the Grand Canyon, come back in about two years and you will find it completely filled and overflowing. So yeah, I am
00:43:37
Speaker
I spend 24 hours a day either buying stuff, looking for stuff, desiring stuff, trying to do anything I can to find the next item, whatever it might be. So I definitely have the collectors gene in a major, major way. I'm toxic.
00:43:56
Speaker
Barry, it has been such a pleasure having you on. Truly, you are a wealth of knowledge in this stuff, and it's been really so much fun talking to you. And now that I know that you're down the street, I'm gonna have to come and see all this stuff in person. Absolutely, come on over anytime. Appreciate it so much. Talk to you soon. Okay, thanks so much. All right, that does it for this episode. Thanks for listening, everybody. This has been Collector's Gene Radio, signing off.