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Witney Blanket

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pipascus

40 Cal.
Joined
Oct 18, 2005
Messages
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Location
White Mountains, Arizona
Opinion:

Is buying a used Witney Blanket worth it? I intend to use it for trekking and it is $90 with a hole near center smaller than a dime. Rest of it is perfect. Just wondering if it's worth getting a used one.
 
Way overpriced!!!!
I've gotten a half dozen Witneys, Hudson Bays and Trapper Points of E-Bay for under $50.00. You can also go to some Army-Navy stores and get relatively correct surplus 100% wool blankets for about $15.00. Another source is a company called Cheaper-Than-Dirt.

Rick
 
Whitney blankets are nice, but very often over priced being considered a "collectable"....

I'm with Deaddawg on this... Cheaper Than Dirt blankets are (usually) foreign army surplus (the Italian and German ones are the best IMO) and they won't cost you an arm and a leg. If you want a good historical pack blanket you might also want to try Hamilton Dry Goods http://www.hamiltondrygoods.com/ ...mostly Civil War stuff, but could work for other time periods as well.
 
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Try the local antique malls, I got a four point Whitney in decent shape for $35 at the local one. :thumbsup:
 
First, HBC never "made" blankets, they just sold them. Other companies made the blankets for them, and put the HBC label on them.

Second, Witney was just one of several companies over the years that made blankets for HBC. But they also sold their blankets themselves under their own label.

So an HBC blanket made say it is made by Witney, and a Witney blanket may say that it is made for HBC. The "quality" should be similar.

The Witney company went out of business around 1 1/2 to 2 years ago. New blankets by them are still out there, but no new ones from the factory/company itself.

New Witney/HBC blankets generally run between $125 and $300 or MORE, depending upon size! You can expect to pay around $175 for a new 3-point from a retailer, if you search around for a deal.

So $90 might and might not be a good deal on that particular blanket. It all depends upon the size/color/condition.

Yes, there are cheaper deals out there if you look around. Most of those "cheaper deals" are military surplus blankets. The sizes tend to be smaller (narrow-er for use with army bunks), and the colors and patterns seldom match documented orginal trade blankets --- or most any documented early blankets.

The white candi-stripe or multi-stripe blanket tends to be the most common HBC style blanket you can find available out there. But the earliest documented reference to that color pattern that has so far been found is 1795. It generally came into use in 1810 to 1830 - the western Rocky Mountain Fur Trade era and after.

Those "pastel" colors, or "earth tone" colors only came into use in the early 1900's. So any blanket with a stripe at each end that is not indigo/dark blue, black, or full red, is probably from the 1900's. Common examples of these are light blue blanket with darker blue stripe, tan with brown stripe, red/pink with maroon stripe, pale green with dark green stripe.

So a lot depends upon the size of your blanket, and the actual colors and stripe patterns. And if you go over to evil-bay and search for "HBC blanket", "witney blanket", "point blanket", or "trade blanket", you will see lots of current ones being offered. And you can get some idea of what those modern antique collectors are paying for blankets.

Of course, these are but my humble opinions, and best used in conjunction with your own research.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

p.s. A friend researched and cataloged the listings of blankets on many many trade goods lists from up around the Great Lakes fur trade areas. Most "trade" blankets were manufactured and sold as doubles - two blankets woven as one long blanket. When a single blanket was sold/traded, the pair was cut/torn into two separate ones. The most common color combo he found was white with dark indigo stripes at each end, and red with indigo stripes coming in second. The most common size was 2 1/2 points. But he also pointed out that most of us had a 4 to 6 point arse to cover!
 
I agree, $90 is too much to pay for a used Witney when you can pick them up on Ebay and other places. I have two Witney blankets now but have owned many "point" blankets in the past. The Italian Army blankets are super nice for the money.
 
i have picked up four of them in the last few months off of e-bay, all for less than $50.00
 
Well, I checked ebay for Witney bankets. I was suprised to see that the prices are kind of high. There are good deals for other wool blankets but it seems that HB and Witney are commanding a high price.
 
I was at an estate auction in Tucumcari, NM a year ago, and the ethnic auctioneer who knew nothing about what he was selling, and commented on these "ugly old blankets" put 5 of them in a box and sold it for $5. They were Whitney and Hudson Bay four point blankets, like new. He was in a hurry to get all the stuff sold so he could meet some friends at the lake and go fishing.

I wasnt in the market for blankets that day but I should have bought them, I guess.
 
SOme good info there for sure.

I have been checking on evilbay and the prices are kind of high indeed, with $90 and even $100+ being paid. I figure that, if I',m going to pay $100+ for a used blanket I haven't personally seen, I'd rather wait and pay for a brand new one, even if it is double that. I see people on evilbay winding up paying the same or more as a new item for a used one sometimes.
 
El Casador said:
SOme good info there for sure.

I have been checking on evilbay and the prices are kind of high indeed, with $90 and even $100+ being paid. I figure that, if I',m going to pay $100+ for a used blanket I haven't personally seen, I'd rather wait and pay for a brand new one, even if it is double that. I see people on evilbay winding up paying the same or more as a new item for a used one sometimes.

That is the weird thing about ebay. Many times I get good deals on there but I also see people paying way more for an item than they could buy it new. I wonder why they don't do a google search first?
 
wwpete52 said:
That is the weird thing about ebay. Many times I get good deals on there but I also see people paying way more for an item than they could buy it new. I wonder why they don't do a google search first?

Part of this is due to people getting caught up in the bidding process. I had a friend who spent $14 bucks for a computer "adapter cable" on eBay and he found out later he could have purchased a new one for $10 at a local store. It was all about "winning" the auction for him.
 
Claude said:
Part of this is due to people getting caught up in the bidding process. I had a friend who spent $14 bucks for a computer "adapter cable" on eBay and he found out later he could have purchased a new one for $10 at a local store. It was all about "winning" the auction for him.

That's a fact! One of the things that always amazed me at "farm auctions" was how folk would get so caught up in the bidding that they'd drive prices up well beyond retail. Auctions seldom benefit the buyer. They're for the seller. (Generally.)
 
It seems though, that maybe &) or *0 dollars for a good witney is not that bad-they show up as selling for over $240 new!

Like anything else I guess, it's about keeping it reasonable.
 
Here in the Kansas territory I have been fortunate to find some Hudson Bay blankets at yard sales and in the antique shops. The yard sales had them for around $5 -$15. The antique shops had them anywhere from $20 - $90 with $40 - $60 being the average. Then there are the off brand multi stripe blankets that almost always tend to be in the $20 range.

I have found only one Whitney, and it is like new and heavier than I expected.

In the past, our club would raffle off a new blanket and we generally had to pay in the $90 range for a new Whitney. Hudson Bays were costlier.

Of course, depending upon how soon you need it, etc....will determine how much you are willing to pay for it. I wanted to turn a Hudson Bay blanket into a capote but didn't have the heart to cut up a good blanket. It took me a little while to finally find one with enough wear and at the right price that I didn't feel guilty!

TexiKan
 
Several years ago, my wife and I were killing an afternoon and hit acouple second hand stores here in town. We seperated and both went our own directions in the store and later she came up to me looking a little "sheepish".

She asked if I found anything neat and I said no. Have you and she said yah and from around her back she showed me a 4pt. Hudsons Bay multi-stripe blanket in great condition and the price was marked down three times on the sticker to $1.95.......Best deal I or should I say, she ever found to date!...(except me finding her of course!)
 
Horner ya done got me againhaw haw haw I thought I got the best deal going when I picked up a 5 point at a yard sale still in the plastic bag for $5.00 but getting yers fer under 2dollars well I bow down to the masters wife,
 

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