Skip to main content

The Buyable Past

March 2023
1min read

Cowboy Buckles

The American cowboy, a bristly breed, had his image carefully groomed by early film studios, and one costumer’s touch, the ornately engraved silver belt buckle, became a staple of Western wardrobes. Though they earned their fame on the movie screen, cowboy buckles are in fact part of a real-world tradition of ornamental metalworking. They began to appear around 1900, when buckles tended to resemble those used by the military.

A 1940s three-piece buckle set
 
beal’s cowboy buckles2005_6_16

The American cowboy, a bristly breed, had his image carefully groomed by early film studios, and one costumer’s touch, the ornately engraved silver belt buckle, became a staple of Western wardrobes. Though they earned their fame on the movie screen, cowboy buckles are in fact part of a real-world tradition of ornamental metalworking. They began to appear around 1900, when buckles tended to resemble those used by the military. Many Western buckles are essentially metal plates, often ovals or rectangles, and they can be large indeed. Others, probably based on those worn by Texas Rangers, come in sets: the buckle itself, one or two “keepers” (loops to prevent the belt’s tip from hanging down), and a cover for the tip itself.

A buckle presented as a rodeo trophy
 
beal’s cowboy buckles2005_6_16b

One eminent Western silversmith was coaxed into the buckle business by a film cowboy. In the early 1920s Tom Mix admired the saddles of Edward H. Bohlin and urged him to fabricate silver and leather items in Hollywood. Bohlin’s shop thrived for decades, and his clients included William S. Hart, Will Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers, Bing Crosby, Clark Gable, and even Ronald Reagan. Collectors covet work by Bohlin and such artisans as John McCabe, Bob Schaezlein, and Mike Srour. Richard Beal, a cowboy-buckle specialist, says that pre-1950 examples are the most desirable and that prices for good silver pieces start at about $300 or $400. Midrange items tend to fall in the four-figure bracket, and anything worth five figures is decidedly high-end. Along with age, gold detailing enhances value, as do superior craftsmanship and a connection to a famous person, often a rodeo star who took the piece home as a trophy. Expert engraving is mandatory, so look for gracefully curving cuts with uniformity of width and depth.

—David Lander Resources

A Mexican-made example from the 1940s
 
beal’s cowboy buckles2005_6_16a

Richard Beal’s Web site ( www.bealscowboybuckles.com ) includes pictures of the vintage items in his inventory; prospective customers can contact him at richard@bealscowboybuckles.com . You can see other striking examples, some for sale and some from the vault, at www.buckles.com, a site maintained by Robert Brandes, a leading collector. The Western Buckle , the first book dedicated to the subject, is crammed with sensational photos by its creator and publisher, David R. Stoecklein. If you’d like to win a prize buckle at auction, check out upcoming sales at High Noon, a Los Angeles house specializing in Western Americana ( www.highnoon.com , 310-202-9010).

We hope you enjoy our work.

Please support this 72-year tradition of trusted historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it with a donation to American Heritage.

Donate

Stories published from "November/December 2005"

Authored by: The Editors

Forty years ago a pair of college students conjured up the earliest form of computer dating

Authored by: Hugh Rawson

“Filibuster”

Authored by: The Editors

Cowboy Buckles

Authored by: The Editors

We set the sixteenth President straight

Authored by: The Editors

Zorro

Authored by: The Editors

One of the Renaissance master’s best designs is in Grand Rapids

Authored by: The Editors

An audacious new book offers intimate glimpses of 2,500 years of strife

Authored by: The Editors

A recent volume gives the horrifying details

Authored by: Terry Golway

The people who stand ready to trade their lives for ours are part of a tradition that goes back 400 years

Authored by: Andrew Coe

Against this enemy, courage alone is not enough. From the beginning, firefighters have had to find ways to climb higher, shoot water farther, spot fires sooner. Here are some of the milestones in the history of fire-extinction technology.

Featured Articles

Famous writers including Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and the Alcotts turned Sleepy Hollow Cemetery into our country’s first conservation project.

Native American peoples and the lands they possessed loomed large for Washington, from his first trips westward as a surveyor to his years as President.

In his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln embodied leading in a time of polarization, political disagreement, and differing understandings of reality.

A hundred years ago, America was rocked by riots, repression, and racial violence.

During Pres. Washington’s first term, an epidemic killed one tenth of all the inhabitants of Philadelphia, then the capital of the young United States.

Now a popular state park, the unassuming geological feature along the Illinois River has served as the site of centuries of human habitation and discovery.  

The recent discovery of the hull of the battleship Nevada recalls her dramatic action at Pearl Harbor and ultimate revenge on D-Day as the first ship to fire on the Nazis.

Our research reveals that 19 artworks in the U.S. Capitol honor men who were Confederate officers or officials. What many of them said, and did, is truly despicable.

Here is probably the most wide-ranging look at Presidential misbehavior ever published in a magazine.

When Germany unleashed its blitzkreig in 1939, the U.S. Army was only the 17th largest in the world. FDR and Marshall had to build a fighting force able to take on the Nazis, against the wishes of many in Congress.

Roast pig, boiled rockfish, and apple pie were among the dishes George and Martha enjoyed during the holiday in 1797. Here are some actual recipes.

Born during Jim Crow, Belle da Costa Greene perfected the art of "passing" while working for one of the most powerful men in America.