Monday, October 12, 2015

Cane Bull Hooks #1


My Father always liked cane hooks as seen here with "Major".

4 comments:

Dick Flint said...

Whart about the making of bull hooks? How exactly so they'd hold up and by whom? What about length? I know that back in the Van Amburgh menagerie days, very long handles (i.e., 6 feet) were used by some but not all. Any advantages that you can see? Disadvantages since they weren't used for long?

4pawfan said...

When looking at almost all older railroad shows and early truck show photos you see the long stock cane hooks are the favorite on the lots. Have been told and makes sense, that you did want to bend down all night in the rain and mud hooking up wagons or quarter poles. I guess with inside shows and not many muddy lots they went away. A couple of years ago, we had talked on here about the demise of the long stock yard canes in general. I found a couple of stores on the web, Lehman's in Ohio that still has the 36" hickory stock canes and the long 60" shepard's cane, along with Livestock Concepts in Hawarden, Ia. that carries the 36" stock canes.
p.j.

Roger Smith said...

I have the 36" hickory elephant cane that belonged to Parley Baer, a gift from his daughter, Kim. Neither of us know how he came by it, but our best guess is that his benefactor was Smokey Jones. It is a cherished relic from the Split Hickory Company, late of Hope, Arkansas. These canes, and the 6-foot hickory poles we all used around cats, were ordered from this one company for decades. It closed, and became the Bruner Ivory Handle Company, which in turn closed in 2004. Its empty warehouse burned in 2012. Parley's cane is plain, and has no evidence of having been fitted out as a working hook.

Chic Silber said...


"Straight grain" hickory is the best

choice for any working pole or handle

Nowadays most sledge handles are plastic