New Brill

[rednichols]

This holster was not made in Austin. It has the merits of a Hill Country holster made by Rabensburg during the 1920s or early 1930s in Llano, Texas at the N. J. Rabensburg Company located immediately north of the Llano River bridge on the westside of Ford Street/Bessemer Avenue.

You're on thin ice with this one. Fredericksburg and Llano both are near Austin (my map says, west and northwest respectively) and the Sunday scabbard was sold throughout ALL of Texas in N.J.'s time. Its construction details are precisely as by N.J. when marked with the Brill name, or the owner's initials, for which we have no info to suggest a pre-32 date. For all we know N.J. made them Kluge's way then switched to his new configuration AFTER '32.

The Sunday scabbard aka The Brill is an important part of holstory. Indeed it marks the very FIRST complex design engineered to be more than a gun pocket. Yet we have to remember that the scabbard was completely overshadowed by the Threepersons, first with the Rangers then with the FBI and thereafter when EVERY maker you can think of made it for revolvers into the 21st century. While no maker outside of Texas ever made the Sunday scabbard at all.

 

[DevilDog72]

ditto...could not agree more

 

[Eddie Southgate]

ditto...could not agree
more

Had to change the original post cause I got dinged for mentioning a Brill item that was for sale elsewhere. Was not a holster but I had posted it in two places. They deleted the other one so I changed this one before I got dinged twice for the same post. Since I enjoyed the thread I did smileys rather than an actual delete.

 

[arabensburg]

When he shifted to Llano, (N.J.) continued to make his original version

You're on thin ice with this one. Fredericksburg and Llano both are near Austin (my map says, west and northwest respectively) and the Sunday scabbard was sold throughout ALL of Texas in N.J.'s time. Its construction details are precisely as by N.J. when marked with the Brill name, or the owner's initials, for which we have no info to suggest a pre-32 date. For all we know N.J. made them Kluge's way then switched to his new configuration AFTER '32.

The Sunday scabbard aka The Brill is an important part of holstory. Indeed it marks the very FIRST complex design engineered to be more than a gun pocket. Yet we have to remember that the scabbard was completely overshadowed by the Threepersons, first with the Rangers then with the FBI and thereafter when EVERY maker you can think of made it for revolvers into the 21st century. While no maker outside of Texas ever made the Sunday scabbard at all.

"…………it has taken a team of people a couple of years to piece it all together.

I am fortunate to have (been) a member of the group, who is not one to allow any assumptions to pass through without scrutiny. So we have come to the conclusion, that Stan Nelson's telling of the tale has to be taken quite literally.

Which means: Yes, when Nelson consulted the 1906-07 Austin city directory, indeed all the players are there to corroborate your grandfather's tale to him. Rangers Hughes, Brown, and White, saddler Wroe, even Carey McNelly who later marries Wroe. But we think that Nelson is only mentioning that, to make it plausible that he was near La Grange whilst your grandfather was there. We think, that is, he wasn't saying that N.J. was in Austin; nor even that 1907 was the year.

Your grandfather's version of the holster is by far the most sophisticated of all its makers in that era, of whom there are a dozen scattered around Texas.

We think that because ALL the copies are faithful to a single standard, that it happened this way: as Nelson says, Hughes, upon being 'dismounted' and assigned to Austin (which began 1905) was instructed to conceal his men's weaponry. Having on hand a bigger, bulkier version of what became known as the Brill and worn only on a very wide belt, he carried it into a handy saddlery that happened to be where N.J. was working. Instructed to make the bulky holster into a petite concealment holster for a waistbelt (these were new, did you know that?) it was slimmed down to an extreme. We believe that the bulky one was by King Ranch, which had its own saddlery and had a close relationship with the Rangers because of rustling. And Kingsville TX was just too far away.

Then, we think, Hughes took this new holster 'round to all saddlers within a 200 mile radius of Austin; we made a map. By now N.J. is gone, first to Dallas then to New Mexico then to Price where he arrived in 1912. Your grandfather reputedly had hundreds of relatives and returned to Texas often. By 1915 he returned, married, and purchased La Grange saddlery from his new wife' uncle.

By now we expect that all these makers were building their version of what we call a Brill today. Including N.J. August Brill had left Wroe, who had shifted from buggies into the automobile business, and first appeared in the Austin directory as A.W. Brill in the 1912/13 directory, which was printed at the end of 1912 actually.

N.J., back in La Grange and even when he shifted to Llano, continued to make his original version whilst sophisticating them………"

Red Nichols to Neale Rabensburg 5/28/2018

 

[rednichols]

My older posts have long since been superseded by further research and outlined in the Second Edition of Holstory. My experience is that interested parties disclaim the truths when they don't agree, and emphasise them when they do agree.