30 THE GOOD LIFE, DAILY COURIER, Grants Pass, Oregon • SUNDAY, MARCH 26, 2017
Barbed wire collector says unique finds ‘bring back history’
By Amy Alonzo
of the Nevada Record-Courier
GARDNERVILLE, Nev. — It can
only mean one thing if Mike Call
slams on the brakes while driving
down the highway — barbed wire.
Call’s been known to spot a new
type of barbed wire while driving 50
mph down the road, said his wife
Patty.
“When you go speeding down the
highway and he hits the brakes and
backs up, you know we’ve passed
barbed wire,” she said. “He says ‘I
just saw another barbed wire I don’t
have.’ I say ‘How do you know at 50
mph?’ He says ‘I just know.’”
Call, 78, of Fallon, Nev., is a
barbed wire aficionado and a member of the Antique Barbed Wire Society and the California Barbed Wire
Collectors Association.
“The whole idea is to bring back
history,” he said. “We’re trying to
keep the collection of barbed wire
going. We want to keep people interested in history.”
Call first became interested in
barbed wire after seeing a small collection in 1969 at a state fair. He
bought a book about it, and “I took
off from there with collecting,” he
said.
Barbed wire was first patented in
the mid-1800s. More than 1,000
barbed wire types were patented,
Call said, and even more were made
without patents.
“There are some rare pieces out
there that are just absolutely beautiful,” he said. “I never cut a farmer’s
fence. I always walk the fence long
enough that I can find a piece.”
When barbed wire was first
patented it was sold by the pound
rather than by the foot, Call said.
The goal was to make wire strands
that were both light and effective.
Wires with elaborate barb patterns
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Mike Call showing off one of his barbed wire displays.
that were heavier didn’t last long,
due to their cost. Those are among
the most coveted by Call and other
collectors.
“That’s what I like about it —
looking at the different designs people came up with,” he said. “It’s
intriguing to me how innovative people are.”
One rare type of wire known as
“Black Death” was used in the Virginia City area, Call said. Discarded
pieces of wire used to haul ore out of
mine shafts were repurposed into
barbed wire. However, sections of the
wire broke off, fell into fields and
were eaten by grazing livestock. Animals that consumed the pieces eventually died. Once ranchers realized
what was happening, they stopped
using the wire.
Call has traveled throughout the
country to collect wire. His favorite
location to collect was in Kansas,
where ranchers who lacked access to
trees for fence posts used 250-pound
limestone blocks to string up their
barbed wire.
He has never traveled overseas to
collect, but an uncle once brought
him back pieces from Italy and Germany.
“He had a hard time getting that
briefcase on the airplane,” Call said
with a smile.
In addition to collecting, Call now
focuses on making displays for
barbed wire. He mounts pieces onto
old barn wood and labels the wire
with its name and the year it was
patented. His displays range from
simple pieces shaped like the silver
state to large pieces that sell for several hundred dollars.