Online Catalogue last updated 17th of September 2023
This new title is a thoroughly documented, researched book about the history of the designs of antique barbed fencing. This book describes hundreds of patents and over 2,000 patent design variations found in antique barbed fencing. Varieties such as mild steel barbed wire strands, sheet metal barbed strips, barbed metal rods, and barbed wooden rails. Antique barbed fencing evolved from the wooden fences and plain wire fences of the 1850s. The major antique barbed fencing period occurred from the late 1860s and mid-1870's to early 1900s when inventors in the Midwest and Northeast designed hundreds of new ways to corral livestock. Using US Patent and Trademark Office records and other information sources, the author describes how the inventors considered their patent designs unique, what their purpose was, and what factors influenced the changes in these designs over time. The author describes the common patterns found in the structure and form of these patent designs. Because of the complexity in these designs the author provides a proposed classification system for antique barbed fencing which can be used for sorting, organizing and indexing barbed fencing patents into similar patents and design groups. This book is intended for collectors, farm historians, and those of us who have ripped our pants crossing barbed wire fences.
James R. Newman has been a collector of barbed fencing since the 1960s and is a member of the Antique Barbed Wire Society. As a doctoral student at the University of California at Davis his interests in zoology involved wildlife field studies that often resulted in climbing over barbed wire fences. These "scientific" observations of barbed fencing led to an interest in their history and design. Following graduate school he continued to encounter barbed fencing as wildlife and environmental scientist in the US and Overseas. Writing this book has been a goal of his from early collecting days.
Code No. 017264, 338 pages, ISBN 9781931626354, $58.00