Kinda long, but I think it's a pretty good read.
An era in horn making is coming to an end in about two weeks.
It all started out in 1983 when I noticed a classified advertisement in Muzzleblasts. It read something like “Horn and Leather business for sale. Can locate anywhere. Call 303-xxx-xxxx for details.”
I had been dabbling in the muzzleloading business for several years at this point, displaying at gun shows and rendezvous, and starting to develop a mail order catalog business. We also became distributors for Treso, Allen Firearms, and several other small manufacturers. So, I called the number that Monday and found out the business for sale was October Country, of which I was familiar. A few weeks later found me in Colorado Springs, meeting the owners and looking over the business. I liked what I saw and noticed that we shared a number of the same businesses as customers. We came to terms on the price and then back to Idaho to prepare a place for everything.
On New Year's Day, they showed up in the driveway. They brought with them two industrial sewing machines, one roll of 7 sides of leather and a box of Mexican cow horns. Some leather working tools, an anvil, a bag turning post and bag patterns completed the package.
We set up shop and I was shown the process for making the powder horns and Linda, Ms. Smoke, learned the steps for cutting out and sewing the bags. After two weeks, the training was done and the Fadums drove out the driveway.
Jumping ahead several years, we had moved from our original location in Post Falls to another house north of Hayden, ID. We turned the finished basement into the leather shop and a room in the garage became the horn shop. As the business increased, employees were hired, until the point where it became too crowded and a move to a commercial location happened. We rapidly outgrew that place and moved again. In 1992, we contracted with Cabela's to produce a special cloth shooting bag. That caused another move which put us in our eventual home. Also in 1992, we acquired Cureton Powder Horns, which sent the horn business through the roof. Of course, separate shops had to be built for the horn making process.
In 2006, family matters caused us to sell October Country and move to California. However, the horn part of the business was not included in the sale and we set up shop in a room we had built in the garage to contain the dust and the noise. We called this new business Powder Horns and More.
As part of the business plan, a web site was developed and we started selling individual cow horns on the site, along with finished powder horns, both the original style and the Cureton style.
The web site worked well, but really not well enough, so Ms. Smoke started offering individual cow horns for sale on eBay. This really took off and she stayed pretty busy listing horns and fulfilling orders.
Finally, in 2014, after 30 years in business and the making of over 36,000 powder horns, it was decided to sell the business and retire. Which we did, kind of.
The business was indeed sold, but I retained three or four sacks of cow horns, thinking I would transition to a very part time basis and make primarily screw tip and applied tip horns and offer them for sale individually on eBay. Somehow that never worked out but I did make the occasional horn. In 2019, I filled in for the new owner making powder horns while he was on a fantastic journey tracing a fur trade route by horseback, canoe and flat boat. Finally, on January 1, 2020, I decided that was it and sold all my equipment except for a wood lathe.
Recently, in cleaning up and organizing my storage shed, I discovered a box of pretty nice cow horns that I had hidden away and forgotten. I offered them to Ms. Smoke, the horn queen of eBay, to dispose of. We are now down to less than two dozen horns and the first batch of three went on sale on 8/22/2021.
Look for them under scrimshaw cow horns muzzleloading.
When they are all gone, that will be it. It has been a fantastic way to make a living and one most enjoyable. Now, it's time to retire, relax, travel and enjoy life.
Check out the last of our auctions on eBay.
Here is one of the polished cow horns that will be auctioned off this week.
John Shorb (Bigsmoke)
Topic: The End of an Era (Read 1240 times)