Very Familiar Holster

by Charles, Wednesday, January 09, 2013, 10:43 (4339 days ago) @ FOG
edited by Charles, Wednesday, January 09, 2013, 10:51

That holster is very familiar. It was made in Mexico and very popular down here on the border during the late 40's, 50s and into the 60's. They were for sale down here at many places, but the big importer was a fellow named Bernie Whitman. Bernie sold them through the mail and had ads in a number of gun magazine of the time. Bernie was a great guy and I knew him well. He principal business was Whitman's Army Store, which sold army surplus and was also a pawn shop that had lots of guns. He was also the local bail bondsman and ran several other business of which the importation and sale of these holsters was just one. My memory is a little foggy, but I think he sold these through a company called "Whitco". Toward the end of their popularity, they bore a small "Made In Mexico" cartouche on the back, but before that they were unmarked.

Bernie was a German Jew. His family got out of Germany early in the Nazi rule before the deporation to the camps started. They came to this country in the mid-30s and Bernie finished school here in the US. He came down here to the border during WWII and was a pillar of the local Jewish Temple and Masonic Lodge. He is gone now and I remember him with great fondness. He was a wheeler dealer from the headwaters, but his word was a good as gold. If you did business with Bernie you needed a sharp point on your pencil, but he never cheated anybody out of a dime.