Canes and Rods

Featured Item:

Our Truncheon has has a new European companion -- The Euro Club. Slightly stubbier and solid, it is a heavy-duty version of our heavy-duty instrument of correction.

A single "Finger." Simulates a “peach switch.” Whippy and nasty. - severe 22” long The Thunderbolt is longer and heavier extreme 30"

$25.- $30.

$45.

Nothing new under the sun!
Hollies and other woods used for Coachmen's Whips.
Whips and Whip Making
By W.G. Ashford, Birmingham England 1893

    The breaking of hollies is a constant source of annoyance, more so perhaps to the manufacturer who only gets grumbled at than to the saddler who can charge for the repair. An unsound stick may occasionally escape detection, but the amount of trying that the sticks get during dressing and thronging is so considerable that very few rotten or weak sticks can get passed, the only defect that is likely to get missed is what is called an "open knot" that is one going very deep into the wood and such may occasionally overlooked, as the whip may be smacked in every direc-tion but one and stand it all right, but if smacked in that one direction, the knot may open, and the stick will break.

   It is really astonishing how often, according to the user's account, the stick broke "the first time I smacked it." It will be found more often than not, when holly sticks are brought back broken, that the end of the thong is squeezed and grease-marked, shewing that it has been caught round the wheel or axle; or that the thong is scored and marked where it is quilled up, shewing that it has been against the top of the coach-house door or into some low hanging boughs in a lane, rather than that there was any real fault in the stick itself. We know that the saddler very frequently dare not point out such factrs, but he may remind a customer that the top of a holly whip is not as thick as a lead pencil, and consequently, although it will stand fair, it will not stand lungeous or rough, usage.