On our holiday to British Columbia we did a fairly obscene amount of antique shopping. Whenever I'm parusing the piles of interesting old stuff, I've always got that "holy grail" in mind. You guys know what I mean... Anything sidesaddle related, an actual sidesaddle itself is especially exciting, photos, boots, hats etc. It seems up here hunt whips are few and far between but every once in awhile you can strike it rich and come across one. Most are in pretty terrible shape, likely because a lot of people have no idea what they are and just toss them aside.
A few years ago while antique shopping with some friends, I found this lovely little whip at a shop that specializes in military antiques. It's fairly large so I'm assuming it's a man's hunt whip.
On our holidays we came across a shop that had a GORGEOUS ladies whip, lash & all still intact. I gasped when I saw it and knew it HAD to come home with me. (think little girly squeals on the way out of the store with it in hand! lol) The little silver collar has the initials "E.A." on it. I wonder who E.A. was? I believe the shaft is covered in braided/woven linen. The leather was really dry and I feared that the lash might break right off so I carefully oiled it and I think it will hold a bit better now.
We stopped by another antique shop that specializes in movie props and all kinds of interesting stuff and you guessed it! I found ANOTHER one! This one with braided leather on the shaft and in almost perfect condition! It is MUCH more stout, so it's definitely a man's whip. The guys at the store had no idea what it was (to my advantage) so I got it for a song! On the collar are tiny letters "ZK", maybe it's a whip made by Zair? I'm not sure!
And all three together to show the size & color differences!
I think I can safely say, I've got a collection of whips now too! I want to build a little "whip rack" to put in the living room to show them off. Maybe that'll be a winter project though!
How interesting!!! I was upset with myself for missing a local auction that had an antique whip that still had the horse hair on the end..
ReplyDelete