Going Crazy over.. Barbed Wire

One time when we were in Fort Collins for Thanksgiving. It was a cold blustery day. Earlier that week it had snowed and 2 inches of snow remained everywhere. The real issue was not the snow but the wind. Woody could hardly wait to get the meal done because he had a new hobby and he wanted to get out and collect some barbed wire.

He had become a collector of antique barbed wire. There were certain requirements for specimens of barb wire. Each had to be 18 inches long. There was a book that became the barb wire collectors bible. In this book each varieties patent was listed and the dates and location and purpose for its manufacture was listed. Some 18 inch pieces were worth 50 to 80 dollars.Each piece had a collection number. Most pieces were worth 3 to 8 dollars. Modern barb wire is all made from the same design and patent. If I remember correctly it is the Crandall form. In the middle 1970's there were many fences that had old or odd forms of barb wire.

Woody would drive down some old road that was not traveled by many, stop his little car, get out and verify the type and snip out the old piece and replace it with a new piece of cradall.

Right after Thanksgiving dinner all the guys piled into his little car and headed to Sterling Colorado (about 90 miles away on the plains) along the back roads looking for changes in variation of barbed wire. Old barn wood was also a prized find as well. The barbed wire was then mounted on plywood panels covered with burlap and trimmed out with old barn wood. The patent information was noted and the number from the book was listed. We found 2 pieces that Woody didn't have in his collection and we were able to cross off the numbers that were left to find.

When he was down visiting us in the San Luis Valley, We found some woodblock pieces. These are barbed wire with thin pieces of wood in them so that the animals will know that there is a fence with barbs on them and not get scraped up with the fence. They were made in the late 1800's and still had the original pieces of wood in them 70 years later. These were worth between 50 and 80 dollars per piece. A collector in the Alamosa gifted us with some of these pieces as a result of some conversation we had. Woody didn't have that number so we was really happy to get some of those pieces.

Woody was happy to share with me the extra pieces that he collected. They moved to Turlock California with us when I started grad school and Heather was about to be born, and were sitting outside the apartment when the landlord correctly identified them as a hazard. He stored them up in Ceres and when he moved and we moved, I never collected them back to be mounted. Now that is the last thing that I would want on my walls. Its funny how time changes your taste.