On the subject of the reuse of old fence components, here's an example from Central Texas. The first photo shows the fence as it first appears when you pull off the road to examine it. Steel tee-posts, heavy gauge aluminum tie wire, and ... strange-looking wire with barbs cut from sheet metal.
The second is a closeup of the actual wire.
This is a very early wire in Central Texas, usually associated with a fence built before about 1880. Do any barbed wire afficionados recognize this pattern of wire? (There were two wires with very similar designs, both having barbs cut from flat stock, but this is one in particular.)
> Do any barbed wire afficionados recognize this pattern of wire?
Okay, that's a pattern known as "Fentress Split Diamond" wire.
As a rule, you will find it somewhere within five miles of a deer blind that looks like this:
(1947 GMC pickup cab used as a roll-down-window hunting blind.)
Frentress.
Frentress Split Diamond, Patent No. 171008, December 14, 1875 by Henry N. Frentress of Dunleith, Illinois
Very similar is Scutt’s Arrow Plate barb.
Scutt’s Arrow Plate, Patent No. 205000, June 18, 1878 by Hiram B. Scutt of Joliet, Illinois
The difference is in the shape of the barb when flattened. The Frentress barb is in the shape of a diamond with two slits (see diagram in patent documents). The Scutt barb is in the shape of an arrowhead with one or two slits on one end (depending on which of many variations) and a V notch on the other.
Good Pics. Is that prickly pear cactus? Is it good for anything or does it go good with a red or white?
B-)
Pablo
I have a close friend who about 30 years ago before digital photography and photoshop would take black/white pics like the above of old rusted triucks, tractors, machinery laying wasted etc and then hand-tint the rusted machinery in various hues. They were nice photos.
> Is it good for anything or does it go good with a red or white?
It'll go with a red Angus or a white Charolais. They love to eat it if you burn the spines off with a torch. Someone around San Antonio claims to be making vodka from some part of the cactus.
not bad eating....
Rich, I saw your little sampler of wire types at the historical library in IC. Nice.
Here's a link to the San Antonio craft distiller making vodka from cactus pads:
> Yes, some of the old barbed wire styles look almost "artistic"
There was a huge amount of mental energy devoted to coming up with patentable designs for barbed wire. Some of the designs were novel but couldn't be manufactured profitably. One of my favorites in that department is an early style known as Kelly Diamond Point with barbs that were skinny lozenge-shaped pieces of sheet metal with holes punched in them. As far as I can tell, making a spool of Kelly Diamond Point wire required threading one of the wires through all of the barbs that would be needed on the spool, rather than crimping the barbs on as needed.
Kelly Diamond Point wire is a rare wire in Central Texas. I've probably only seen two fences constructed with it.
> There was a huge amount of mental energy devoted to coming up with patentable designs for barbed wire.
No kidding. Between 1853 and 1897 there were something like 450 patents issued for barbed wire. Over 2000 different varieties have been found. Less than 50% of the patented wires were ever manufactured and less than 10% were practical. Many were to complicated to be commercially successful.
Here's a link to the Kelly diamond plate or "Thorny" fence patent:
Patent No. 74379, February 11, 1868 by Michael Kelly of New York, New York. This was one of the earliest barbed wire patents, maybe 5th or 6th.
Based on the patent document, Kelly apparently intended that the barbs would be "introduced easily upon the wire, either by proper machinery or by hand." Then each barb would be whacked with a hammer to crimp it onto the wire.
No wonder it's rare.
> Based on the patent document, Kelly apparently intended that the barbs would be "introduced easily upon the wire, either by proper machinery or by hand." Then each barb would be whacked with a hammer to crimp it onto the wire.
The specimens of Kelly Diamond Point Wire I've collected have a spacing of about 3 inches on the barbs. So, that's 5280 barbs per 80-rod roll that had to be strung on the wire prior to winding the two lines together. That sounds more like cottage industry than manufacturing.
Kent
> There was a huge amount of mental energy devoted to coming up with patentable designs for barbed wire.
Here's a quote from The Wire That Fenced the West by Henry D. and Frances T. McCallum that seems to echo your observation:
"One American jurist, during litigation concerning barbed-wire patents said:
"...many times...men have exhausted their intellects and their lives fashioning, conditioning, and maturing the most abstruse processes and machinery without having contributed one dollar to the world's wealth or one throb of enjoyment to its happiness..."
Kent
> "One American jurist, during litigation concerning barbed-wire patents said:
>
> "...many times...men have exhausted their intellects and their lives fashioning, conditioning, and maturing the most abstruse processes and machinery without having contributed one dollar to the world's wealth or one throb of enjoyment to its happiness..."
What's most noteworthy to me about the development of barbed wire is really how few successful designs there were. After the Glidden, Baker, and Haish patent wires, I think everything else made was pretty much just the crumbs.
This is some of the oldest "barbed wire" I have ever found or seen in Oklahoma.
Found on the ground in the Modoc Indian Reservation.
"Buckthorn" Ribbon Wire
Patent No. 244726, July 26, 1881 by Thomas V. Allis of New York, New York.
> so have the barbed wire types narrowed down to jsut a few; like what looks like one and two barbed versions of the Glidden patent?
Well, the wire known as "Baker Perfect" with a barb of flat stock rather than round wire, is probably the main alternate to the Glidden patent wire known as "The Winner". They both have the advantage of economy of materials and efficiency of manufacture.
You'd have to give the early inventor who realized the advantages of twisted two-strand wire credit before Glidden and Baker, but most of the rest of the barbed wire patents, are really either more variations on the foundational patents (such as the four-point barbs of military wires) or are simply inefficient variations whose main advantage was that they didn't infringe on other patents.
> Now I'm going to be paying more attention to the wire.
Probably the details that are even more important to pay attention to are those of the construction of the fence, everything excluding the actual wire. What type of wood are the posts made of? How were the braced sections at corners and about 300 ft. intervals constructed? Are the posts set in (gasp!) concrete?
In Central Texas, the oldest fences show no tool marks other than the axe and the hammer or hatchet. Fence posts cut with a a saw? Not the earliest. Galvanized pipe used in brace section? Nix. All of that is probably specific to a particular area and the materials that were available at particular times.
