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Old 05-18-2017, 07:04 PM
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rednichols rednichols is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by crazyphil View Post
I asked our friend John Bianchi if Wally ever told him anything about
his years in the service. Apparantly he didn't, and John thinks he came
from Albuquerque where his business was called Albuquerque Leather.
Here's the 411 on your two posts with queries:

(By the way, I only developed all this info on Wally while establishing the birth/death dates of various of the lesser known makers; I wasn't after any real detail because they won't feature much in The Book).

For example, I didn't even know if Wally was short for Wallace as it turned out to be; given that someone like Andy Anderson turned out to be Warren, Jack Martin turned out to be Julius, and Tex Shoemaker turned out to be Loren. Much harder to find these chaps than one might expect when they use nicknames (as I do, Red for Richard).

Anyway: Wally was 'from' MA and appears to have been furloughed from the Army into Albuquerque NM in 1946, where a tax notice in a 1954 newspaper shows he operated a company he called Wolfram Leather Works on Fourth St. NW. In between, a 1948 article shows him still a deputy in Alb, while a 1951 article shows him a leatherworker and former deputy, and les.b's post as a leather goods man in 1952 in Alb. By '53 he appears as a Monrovia officer (and Sarah as working for a potter) (also cited by les.b). Les.b tells us '55 still an officer and '58 Wolfram Leather Co. (so, incorporated within the next ten years, which is usually done to protect the owners from civil liability). FYI, 1958 is the year that John Bianchi was furloughed from the Army and joined Monrovia PD; explaining the linkup between him and Wally. John visited ALL the available holster makers in L.A., including Alfonso whose son Omar tells me that Alfonso said if he'd known John was scouting knowledge for a holster company startup he wouldn't have been so forthcoming :-).

By '69 he appears in the Monrovia directory as Wolfram Leather Co. Inc with Sarah. Given the date of sale to S&W being considered to be 1969 (though John Bianchi was still talking about it to me in 1970), clearly that's the company that was sold first to Safariland (Perkins) and then acquired by S&W.

Because Wally died in NM, I therefore assume that he retired there on monies made from the sale and remained there until his death there in 2008.

Here's one of the Myres pics, in this case from a '44 catalogue; turnerriver will have to tell us again who Barton was (I recall he's posted on this before):

1944 myres (3).jpg
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Last edited by rednichols; 05-18-2017 at 07:22 PM.
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