Tex Shoemaker Closed

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JayFramer

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Guys unfortunately I must inform you that Tex Shoemaker the holster makers have closed their doors permanently:

Leather Holsters Tex Shoemaker Police Gear

They've been in business for 81 years and made lots of leather for lawmen as well as Hollywood. The famous holster used by Rick on the Walking Dead as well as the one worn by Chief Hopper on Stranger Things (awesome program) were made by Tex Shoemaker. They had a nice line of duty and western holsters and lots of need accessories, and were known for making a quality product.

Quite the shame, I was thinking about ordering a Chief Hopper holster for my Model 66 but just found out they're gone. Another great holster maker out of the game. :(

-Jay
 
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DANG! And I just sold one of their holsters. Should have hung onto it for a year - I'd probably have got twice as much for it.

Seriously though, they did make a nice product and its a shame to see them close. Seems odd that they would just close rather than sell the business.
 
BC38 said:
DANG! And I just sold one of their holsters. Should have hung onto it for a year - I'd probably have got twice as much for it.

Seriously though, they did make a nice product and its a shame to see them close. Seems odd that they would just close rather than sell the business.
Click to expand...

Most shoe soles and holsters are made from plastic
Bags are made from ripstop fabric
Working leather is becoming a lost art
And I doubt that many youngins are learning how to make or fix wooden gunstocks
 
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There are so many different Makers now that there is stiff competition. The fact that Kydex seems to be replacing a lot of the leather products these days does not help either. :(
 
I don't think the art and skill of leather working, or making wood stocks etc will ever disappear but will become the venue of craftsmen and artists of the type that still make flintlocks and associated accessories. Not things the average guy will afford or even appreciate but the skills sets will persist.
 
twodog max said:
I don't think the art and skill of leather working, or making wood stocks etc will ever disappear but will become the venue of craftsmen and artists of the type that still make flintlocks and associated accessories. Not things the average guy will afford or even appreciate but the skills sets will persist.
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People think it doesn't happen but many sophisticated skills get lost to time. The assumption is that once something requiring skills or knowledge is put on record by humans, it always remains on record and available.

The perfect example of this is what happened to the USS Constitution a few years ago. The ship was completely rigged for sailing for the first time in over (I think) a hundred years.

The Navy struggled with rigging the ship as well as sitting it up to move under it's own power. Despite all the lore on sailing ships, evidently there was no longer a comprehensive body of knowledge available on how to rig a man of war built in the 1790's.

Finally, they got under sail. The result was that our Navy, despite their great proficiency and skill, could barely get the ship around Boston harbor. The ability to operate a sailing ship had been lost and it would take years, maybe decades, to recover it, time the Navy didn't have.
Bill S
 
I had a friend who was a California game warden. I bought my S&W 686 from him in the early 1990s. (It was a former Fish and Game service weapon). I asked him about a holster and he said he ‘knew a guy’. I also had a Detonics Combat Master compact 45 Auto and mentioned the fact that nobody seemed to offer a holster for it.

A few weeks later, my friend handed me a pair of high-rise thumb break holsters, one for each gun. I asked him how much I owed him, and he said that ‘the guy’ just gave them to him for free because he was law enforcement.

Turns out ‘the guy’ was Tex Shoemaker. I still have both guns and both Tex Shoemaker holsters, and will treasure them even more now.
 
Actually the business closed it's doors about a year ago. January 2018.
(But that is evident when I look at the dates on the earlier posts.)

But, I'm just glad I got this souvenir holster while I still could.
Shown with my Model 67 Combat Masterpiece, and belt by Red Nichols,
another masterpiece.
 

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twodog max said:
I don't think the art and skill of leather working, or making wood stocks etc will ever disappear but will become the venue of craftsmen and artists of the type that still make flintlocks and associated accessories. Not things the average guy will afford or even appreciate but the skills sets will persist.
Click to expand...

I'm more inclined to agree with V1 with his very good analogy.

The 'craft' of making this holster will never die; any amateur can do it from a picture alone, even a hundred years from now; as long as they can work out the correct type of leather and its thickness and how to finish it:

1 early (4).jpg

But this one? Modern gunleather transcended 'craft' and became 'science' in the '70s and '80s (which is when all innovation was switched over to synthetics):

2800.jpg

There is no one in the gunleather industry who could even reverse engineer the Bianchi Model 2800 holster today, because it's not a matter of skill or craftsmanship. It's a matter of sophisticated knowledge -- and that knowledge is already gone, like the sailing ship :-).

There are NO modern gunleather makers whose abilities are beyond the craft stage. All that skill was redirected to synthetics thirty years ago.
 
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Does anyone have a link to a shoemaker fit chart; if one exists? I just picked up a very small T.S. &Sons belt holster marked "1958 JF:L" Thanks
 
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V1 Rotate said:
People think it doesn't happen but many sophisticated skills get lost to time. The assumption is that once something requiring skills or knowledge is put on record by humans, it always remains on record and available.
Click to expand...

Here are two examples. No one can stitch a leather hat sweat-band like this - the machinery no longer exists. No one has any idea how Brunswick employees wove the 'Eisenmeister' wrap on pool cues (bottom cue).
 

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crazyphil said:
I have no chart, but might guess: JF = J Frame, L=Left handed.
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CP,
That would make sense; but it is too small for a M36 and is RH. Very diminutive holster; but nice and in new condition. Derringer? Jetfire?

414143744.jpg


414143745.jpg
 
The holster pictured above appears to me to be a IWB, left hand, rough out holster for a Beretta Jet Fire .25 or .22LR auto pistol
 
Glad someone bumped this old thread. Didn't know they closed. Sorry to see them go.

I used to go there in the 90's and get holsters from them. Even had some custom work done in the early 2000's for some competition mag pouches I used for the Police Olympics. Still have many of there products. But even in the 90's, I could tell time was passing them by.

Their legacy will live on in every old box of gun leather at every gun show & most old school gun shops.
 
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