I met so many wonderful people at Round Top last week…
But the cowboy with the biggest heart was Jan the
Cowboy Collector who had his WILD WEST collectibles set up at Granny McCormick’s in Warrenton. 

 

Now in his mid-sixties, Jan’s life has been devoted to studying, collecting, sharing and selling all there is to know about the WILD WEST.  With his crusty old hat and Puma Cowboy boots, Jan’s
BIG SMILE and strong handshake assure you that he is a good ol’ Texas boy with nothing but BIG Love for all things WESTERN.

 

Jan’s love affair with the Wild West began when he was 12 years old and he started collecting guns and other Western memorabilia.  According to Jan he ”loved to play Cowboys & Indians,
and still does love it.”  His childhood collection grew and grew until, as an adult, he opened the Old West Museum in Mexia, Texas where he installed his stock of antiquities.  Jan eventually sold the museum
in 1999 and auctioned off the 3000+ artifacts that he had been collecting all of his life.

 

Included in the Old West Museum’s auction was Jan’s most prized possession, Doc Holliday’s WHISKEY FLASK.  The flask had been given to Holliday by Ned Buntline who is credited with making Buffalo Bill famous through Buntline’s dime novel series: Buffalo Bill Cody – King of the Border Men.

The Old West Museum’s lot also included Buffalo Bill’s makeup kit and Sammy Davis Jr.’s gun and fast draw rig from when he was the fastest draw in Hollywood.

 

Since letting his museum and collection go in 1999, Jan the Cowboy Collector has worked with A&S Auction Company who offers premiere Western auctions around Texas.  Jan also works directly with home and business owners who are in search for authentic Western artifacts.  This role of installing Wild West memorabilia started with a client who was trying to recreate an old west town.  According to Jan, “she had hired an interior decorator from Dallas and the decorator had put a lot of ‘decorator’ stuff in there. Not the real stuff…” so Jan offered to work for her and make it all “just the way it used to be”.  For that first client Jan re-created a whole little western town, including a COWBOY BUNKHOUSE, BORDELLO, SALOON, and JUDGE ROY BEAN HOUSE. 

 

Jan’s opinion about Western decor is emphatic, he “likes the ‘real stuff’, not the ‘decorator stuff’.  If you put the real stuff in there instead of the decorator stuff then it will always go up in value.  if you put decorator stuff in there then you’ll just have decorator stuff.”  Indeed, authenticity is a key ingredient for Western decor and literally translates into living with your collections.

 

To date Jan’s Wild West installments have been in Texas homes but he looks forward to new opportunities across the United States.  Jan explained that such a project would include visiting the space in person, he would then go back to his warehouse and take photographs of what he thinks the client might need for a custom shopping experience.  Once the collection was assembled then Jan would load the treasures into a trailer, and deliver them himself.   

 

In addition to Jan’s stock, he also offers a one hour history program about gun fighters, gamblers, and other truths from the Wild West.  He appears in traditional dress and carries authentic artifacts with him, including original cheating devices from gamblers, plus hide away weaponslike those once sported by Wild West legends like Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp.  

In addition to working for A&S Auction Company, private installments of Wild West decor, and Jan’s history programs, Jan continues to collect, restore and rebuild historical artifacts.  His current collection includes sterling silver bullets from Clayton Moore, the actor known around the world as The Lone Ranger.  When Moore passed away in 1999 from a sudden heart attack, he had just placed an order for his famous custom made silver bullets.  Through an auction for the Bohlin Company, the company that manufactured the bullets for Moore, Jan was able to acquire the 72 silver bullets that were never delivered to Moore.  Made even more famous when Moore gave every president one of the silver bullets from 1949 to 1999, Jan has enjoyed being the final owner of the collection.  He has donated some of the bullets to church auctions, fetching as much as $4000 for one.  He also frames them with an autgraphed photo of Clayton Moore and a Certificate of Authenticity. 

 

Jan has also restored over 128 kiddie horse rides… like a true cowboy, he decided one day that he wanted to ride one of them, so he went and picked up a wheelchair at an estate sale and set the horse on the wheelchair’s wheels and mechanics.  He liked it so well that he has continued to build them. 

{CONFESSION}: I RODE one of these Wild West Horse/WheelchairS and I can tell you it was a BLAST.  I felt like a little kid and yee-hawed all over Round Top.  What a scene!!  {Pic BELOW}

 

Jan’s most charming quality is unquestionably his PASSION for the Wild West.  When asked, Jan set forth that he was a “‘freak’ about the old west… Nothing you saw on television ever really happened” he said.  Jan went on to share the value of the Wild West is that it is “the only part of our American history that was truly American, it wasn’t a spin off from anywhere else. Cowboys & Indians never happened in another country; it is our true Americana that no one else can claim…  there is some intrigue about the lawlessness, and only the fittest of the fit survived.  It was a tough life, to find out how tough their life really was, what they went through every day just fascinated me.” 

Also intriguing about the Wild West is that it lasted for less than 20 years, from the 1860’s to the 188o’s, then it was gone.  After the civil war, the opening of the west, and the gold mines in California, towns started springing up.  To get there you had to go through the Indians…  it was two cultures colliding and becoming one.  So much happened in that 20 years, and it really wasn’t all that long ago.  It seems like a blink in time when you are visiting with Jan the Cowboy Collector… surely he is here to remind us all to hang on to the Wild West heritage of our great country. 

{Fancy & Jan at Junk Gypsy Prom}

Holler at me HERE for Jan’s CONTACT INFO. 
Thanks, Jan!! xo,Fancy

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Posted on Thursday, April 16th, 2009 at 11:18 am under Love It!!, Round Top, Vintage and . Comment RSS 2.0 feed. Comments/Pings Closed.