A dozen makers of the Brill -- not including Brill!

[rednichols]

I'm not actually obsessed with the Brill; it's just that I happen to be in that spot at the moment and being reminded what I "have on them".

The best-known maker of the Brill, was Arno Brill (we think) who made the 'early' Brills (before 1930):





The least-known maker (except on this forum perhaps) of the Brill was Newton Rabensburg; who made the 'late' Brills (after 1930):





They are easy to tell apart when one knows how. Rabensburg credited himself with inventing the Brill, age 18, for the Texas Rangers. Who are we to prove him wrong; it was a hundred years ago?

 

[rednichols]

Don't see how there could have been enough Rangers to keep them all busy (a company was only a bit more than a dozen men) but there were twelve more makers that we know of so far, of the Brill; right down to the odd little lip at the muzzle yet with a single exception:

and that exception was L. Huber out of Lubbock (the muzzle is stitched straight through it and the fender)

Kingsville Lumber; an odd name for a holster company, this is the former King Ranch saddlery in, of course, Kingsville.

W.E. Lutz in Bastrop. I was able to find out a bit about the man himself, have it around here somewhere.

Prosser Martin in Del Rio, famous in his own right.

 

[rednichols]

S.D. Myres' model 666 is easy to miss in their early catalogues, and is listed as being a Tom Threepersons Style Holster. El Paso (there are no Sweetwater Myres holsters).

C.L. Rogers in Stamford. Did find out a bit more about him and have a pic of his shopfront there.

R.H. Voss in Orange. Have a pic of a Ranger wearing what I think is a Voss with an SAA in it.

S.A. Wade in Rosenberg. The stamp on the backside of the fender seemed modernish but he checks out as period to the era.

 

[rednichols]

then there are:

Lone Star Shoe Service in Austin. The only one that hasn't appeared yet in my research files.

R.A. Moores in Henderson

Joe Frank in Beaumont

And last and no means the least:

the reasonably well-known L.A. Sessums, who operated Fisher-Sessums Hardware Co. in Longview.

 

[rednichols]

Not 'counted' are these that are unmarked:

All three of these have a lot of commonality in their carving;

And then likely by the same craftsman, who could have been Rabensburg; and the use of the owner's initials would give credence to that; yet the simple carving is so different to his later work that one could surmise they are VERY early, and not least because:

This one is marked on the backside of the fender as A.W. Brill, and alleged to have been owned by Butch Cassidy, though city directories indicate that neither A.W. Brill Company nor Butch Cassidy lived at the same time (1912 'birth' for the former, 1908 'death' for the latter). Some theorists believe that Butch was not killed in 1908 and actually died many years later in USA.

 

[rednichols]

All of which tempts me to start a thread titled "What's a Tom Threepersons Style Holster?"; with the answer, "it's a Brill without the cuff and fender", which would beg the question, "What's a Brill?" to which the reply would be, "Ah, therein lies a tale".

The Brills of N.J. Rabensburg, lived 1889-1961 and built the Brills for the Brill family 1932-1955 (his retirement and August's death):





These were made personally by Rabensburg in Austin, for one Stan Nelson, in the mid-1950s during N.J.'s retirement. Note Stan's initials (Stan I believe is nearly 100 now). And it was Stan who brought N.J's story into the present day

 

[Eddie Southgate]

Mis bid an auction a while back on a Wade and lost on account of it . Thought I typed one thing and I guess I hit a wrong key and ended up being $100.00 off .

Eddie

 

[TxShooter]

Based on a friend's research, I'm inclined to believe that L.A. Sessums was merely a retailer via his hardware store. I think it's highly likely that the Sessums marked holsters were made for him by someone else, likely Bedell Rogers.

 

[rednichols]

Based on a friend's research, I'm inclined to believe that L.A. Sessums was merely a retailer via his hardware store. I think it's highly likely that the Sessums marked holsters were made for him by someone else, likely Bedell Rogers.

Tell me more .

 

[wheelgun610]

Not 'counted' are these that are unmarked.... All three of these have a lot of commonality in their carving....

It would be easy to think that these two were made by the same person.

This is one I got from Mr. Witty about a dozen years ago. The carving style appears nearly identical.

I'll get some more pics with as much detail as possible - soon....

Mark

 

[arabensburg]

Your holster might be an early N J Rabensburg

Wow! I like this holster as well. I am a little late in saying so. I would like to see the back.

The floral pattern of your holster acquired from Mr. Witty is a very close match to two or more of my leather templates made by N J Rabensburg.

There is no A W Brill maker mark on the cuff. That is great as well. I have posted recently that I am trying to find a "Brill" type made prior to 1932 during the 1920s in Llano, Texas (also, in La Grange during the late teens). The cuff would have to be decorated or perhaps stamped with initials or possibly a N J Rabensburg maker mark.

Could this be one? Is there anything stamped or written on the back? Does Mr. Witty have any additional history to add? Is there a liner?

Submitted by Neale Rabensburg

 

[arabensburg]

N J Rabensburg Template Compare

Attached is an N J Rabensburg leather floral template. It was a left handed so I flipped it to make it righthanded. Rabensburg could have traced a left handed template and flip the tracing paper before transferring the design to a piece of leather.

The template and the finished design on the early holster are almost one and the same.

Submitted by Neale Rabensburg

 

[rednichols]

Attached is an N J Rabensburg leather floral template. It was a left handed so I flipped it to make it righthanded. Rabensburg could have traced a left handed template and flip the tracing paper before transferring the design to a piece of leather.

The template and the finished design on the early holster are almost one and the same.

Submitted by Neale Rabensburg

You're on the wrong track, Neale. Yes the pattern matches your holster and it is an early Brill by Kluge; common enough w/out the Brill marking on the cuff itself.

The Sessums-marked holsters I've verified as being made by Robert Rogers then joined by his son Bedell Rogers; the carving on a Sessums is unique to itself and is not shared by either the early or late Brills, nor any other maker of what I call Brillalikes.

An update on my original post which was 2018: there are now about two dozen makers known of marked and unmarked Brillalikes that follow the Rangers 'formula' while having distinctly different construction details.

Newspaper articles and a mass of related research has turned up the complete tale of Robert Rogers of Mexico and his role in making Langley Sessums' gunleather. This is just one article that hopefully will be legible for you all:



Sessums and Fisher were partners in a hardware store (which is really more of a sporting goods store of the time) and after Sessums' death Fisher returned control of the saddlery side to the Rogers; and Bedell, a busted-up rodeo rider of some accomplishment, joined his father Robert:



So the Sessums and Rogers operation is related to Brill and N.J. only by being one competitor of two dozen for the Texas 'Sunday scabbard' business.

 

[rednichols]

The backside construction of a Sessums vs the Brills

Sessums-marked

Rogers-marked

Brill-marked by Kluge

Brill-marked by N.J.

 

[Papa Lee]

S.A. Wade - Rosenberg, TX

I thought I would throw in another old S.A. Wade example for a 5" S&W M&P. OCS&S has him listed C.A. 1900.

 

[StrawHat]

I thought I would throw in another old S.A. Wade example for a 5" S&W M&P. OCS&S has him listed C.A. 1900.

That appears to be a lot of Sunday scabbard for a K frame. An N frame doesn't fit?

Kevin

 

[boykinlp]

I thought I would throw in another old S.A. Wade example for a 5" S&W M&P. OCS&S has him listed C.A. 1900.

Thanks for sharing. Seeing another different stitching style on the back of the holster is cool.
Larry

 

[Papa Lee]

S.A. Wade

That appears to be a lot of Sunday scabbard for a K frame. An N frame doesn't fit?

Kevin

Kevin,
Reasonable question, but the N frame does not fit. A Colt I frame like the Army Special and Official Police would work.
Lee

 

[rednichols]

Kevin,
Reasonable question, but the N frame does not fit. A Colt I frame like the Army Special and Official Police would work.
Lee

Kevin is right, and one must consider the times that Wade lived in, and his locale. He was a Texas saddler for a reason: all Sunday scabbards, without exception, of the early 1900s were made in Texas and for Texas Rangers and/or LEOs there who emulated them. The Rangers wanted .45 LC because the ammo for practice was free to them, and they wanted man stoppers. That would leave out the K frames for them; or they would choose the .38 Super until the .357 Magnum from 1935, in both cases for penetrating the thick steel bodies of cars then. Be aware that it wasn't the Roaring Twenties that were the Chicago mobsters, but the 1930s that produced gangsters made desperate, not by the again legal alcohol trade but the twin plagues of the Dust Bowl and the Depression -- not to mention to the general availability of the Thompson in .45 ACP for both fBI and the mobsters.

So LEOs of Texas wanted N frames. And the Sunday scabbard being strapless was designed to be so small on them that you can actually see the leather swell and stretch when the revolver is inserted; if it doesn't then it doesn't "fit". The K frame and other .38s were simply not good enough for Rangers and even the hot .38s wanted the N frames.

As a designer/maker I call to your attention this relationship of the trigger guard of a DA revolver in this pair of Brills from Witty. That frame ahead of the guard m/b hard up against the welt stack inside for the revolver to stay in reliably without a strap, on the DA and the SA, too. So yours is an N frame, too.

 

[Papa Lee]

Kevin is right, and one must consider the times that Wade lived in, and his locale. He was a Texas saddler for a reason: all Sunday scabbards, without exception, of the early 1900s were made in Texas and for Texas Rangers and/or LEOs there who emulated them. The Rangers wanted .45 LC because the ammo for practice was free to them, and they wanted man stoppers. That would leave out the K frames for them; or they would choose the .38 Super until the .357 Magnum from 1935, in both cases for penetrating the thick steel bodies of cars then. Be aware that it wasn't the Roaring Twenties that were the Chicago mobsters, but the 1930s that produced gangsters made desperate, not by the again legal alcohol trade but the twin plagues of the Dust Bowl and the Depression -- not to mention to the general availability of the Thompson in .45 ACP for both fBI and the mobsters.

So LEOs of Texas wanted N frames. And the Sunday scabbard being strapless was designed to be so small on them that you can actually see the leather swell and stretch when the revolver is inserted; if it doesn't then it doesn't "fit". The K frame and other .38s were simply not good enough for Rangers and even the hot .38s wanted the N frames.

As a designer/maker I call to your attention this relationship of the trigger guard of a DA revolver in this pair of Brills from Witty. That frame ahead of the guard m/b hard up against the welt stack inside for the revolver to stay in reliably without a strap, on the DA and the SA, too. So yours is an N frame, too.

This is why I like this forum. I continue to learn from it and it helps me to consider other opinions. In this case, I was able to fit my 1917 S&W in the Wade Sunday scabbard (see photo). It was quite "snug", and if the holster was new that would be good, but on a holster that has seen use, one would expect that the leather would stretch with use to make the fit less snug.
The retention strap, however, is about a half an inch too short to snap. Could the strap have shrunk that much? Not likely, but perhaps. Could the strap have been added later for the K frame gun? Also possible, although its age and style looks original to the holster.
So, one could speculate that the Wade holster was originally made for an N frame and that in short order it was adapted to a (not so perfect fit) K frame or I frame Colt with the addition of the retention strap, although this can not be known with any certainty.

By the way, the holster has a single edge welt piece tapered East to West.