Fans pony up for Old West items

WORLEY – Part nostalgia, part stock market for cowboys.

That’s what attracts shoppers to this weekend’s Northwest Soiree – a gathering of vendors selling everything Old West. From silver pistols and original John Wayne movie posters to china dishes decorated with bucking broncos, this show is loaded with collectibles.

Some people scoured the back room of the Coeur d’Alene Casino on Saturday for that one piece missing from their personal collection. Others just looked to look.

“These guys will drive a thousand miles to look at a pair of spurs,” said Dave Wilson, of Roundup Productions, the company that hosts the show, which runs through today.

Wilson, who’s known in cowboy collectible circles for his perfectly waxed, gray handlebar mustache that likely measures a foot from end to end, said that any type of antique or collectible is more difficult to find these days.

That’s because of eBay and television shows such as PBS’ “Antiques Roadshow.” These venues have heightened people’s awareness of the value of old things that were once shrugged off as junk. With more people selling treasures, it’s difficult for vendors to make rare finds, Wilson said.

“This stuff goes up better than the stock market,” he said, adding that the value of an item, whether it’s a circa-1910 leather saddle with a horsehair cinch or a pair of Hopalong Cassidy binoculars, goes up between 15 percent and 25 percent each year.

Dean Johnson, of Noxon, Mont., stood mesmerized by a display of Roy Rogers memorabilia. A children’s saddle with “Roy Rogers” stamped into the leather, a bow, a Roy Rogers doll.

“A lot of this stuff I’ve never seen,” said Johnson, who still thinks of the cowboy actor and singer as a hero.

“When I grew up in the ‘50s he was the hottest thing going. He’s the king of the cowboys.”

For his birthday, Johnson’s wife found him a similar Roy Rogers saddle on eBay. She also used the computer to find a Roy Rogers pearl-handled pistol signed by the king himself from a man in Japan.

This is the nostalgia that brings people to these shows.

At Jim and Kristel McKenna’s booth, people flipped through a stack of original Western movie posters such as the 1938 advertiser for Gene Autry’s “Prairie Moon.” Kristel McKenna said there’s not just one popular sought-after poster.

“They all want one that reminds them of something in the past,” she said. “It’s a nostalgia business.”

That’s what brought a Spokane couple, who declined to give their names, to the show. The wife is looking for a set of four portraits of American Indians. The woman grew up with those images and wants to hang them on the wall once again.

But not everything is vintage.

Bob Hickman, of Hickman Saddlery in Post Falls, has for sale brand new oak toilet seats covered with cowhide and framed in leather. Some even have silver conchs.

Hickman proudly told of selling a commode cover in January to retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf during a show in Reno.

He can’t remember which color of cowhide the general who commanded U.S. forces in the 1991 Gulf War preferred.

“My adrenaline was going,” said Hickman.