BY BY MIKE PULFER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
A Roy Rogers figurine rides Trigger.
(Michael Snyder photos)
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In the heyday of the handsome, cowboy good guys, merchandise with their names and pictures -- and pictures of their horses, dogs, wives and sidekicks -- was everywhere.
Consumers bought cowboy bicycles with gun holders in hardware and department stores; in their Quaker Oats boxes, they found cowboy rings, badges and other premiums.
Today, they go to flea markets and antique toy shows. And they take their money.
And now that Roy Rogers has died, Western memorabilia is likely to increase in value, according to most local toy dealers and Western collectibles experts.
Roy Rogers-style cap guns.
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Tristate collector Dale Smith, who estimates the value of his 700 cowboy guns and other toys at $50,000, says he has traveled from Pennsylvania to Washington state to find them.
"I first got into it when I saw some cap guns in one of the antique malls on the West Coast for $20, then we went to another mall and saw the same things for $65 or $75," he said.
He determined dealing was in his future. "It was just a quirk at first," he said, "but pretty soon, I got to be known as the cap-gun man."
Now, one of his cowboy bicycles, built in 1950 by Roll Fast Bicycles, is worth about $4,000, he said. Its original price tag read $59. And the prices are likely to go up, especially for items depicting Mr. Rogers, who died Monday in his Apple Valley, Calif., home at the age of 86.
"It's like anything else, says Charlie Kneipp, another dealer in collectible toys. "You don't become famous till after your death."
Roy Rogers guitar and sheet music.
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Mr. Rogers' death "will probably boost the number of people remembering him, said Lucinda Heekin, president of the Last Best Place Catalog Co., Montgomery, which specializes in Western wear and accessories, including fringed jackets, beaded vests and snakeskin boots. "He will be reintroduced to younger generations that maybe don't know who he is."
"Usually, when (celebrities) die, the prices go up," said Mike Turmellof Hyde Park, a collector and owner of Generations, an estate-sale specialist. "And cowboy stuff has always been popular."
Among the most sought-after: flashlights, hats, watches, movie posters, records, lanterns, guns, holsters, boots, crayons, cutout books, board games, thermos bottles, lunch boxes, potato-chip bags, school bags and pens.
To this point, however, the move on cowboy memorabilia in and around Cincinnati has been slow.
Kathy Murrer, co-owner of the Earth Collectible Toy Mall, Pleasant Ridge, said interest and prices don't always soar after the loss of a legend, even one of Roy Rogers' stature.
"Demand is based on nostalgia, and the people who are nostalgic about Roy Rogers are generally older and thinking about holding or selling -- not buying," she said.
Phil Thompson, manager at Phil's Records in Fort Thomas, said by midweek no one had called in orders for Roy Rogers records.
Roy Rogers was good, but he wasn't the best.
In the world of cowboy collectibles, it's Hopalong Cassidy who gets the most interest and the highest prices, local dealers say.
Hopalong "Hoppy" Cassidy was a film character, played by William Boyd, in 54 movies produced from 1935 to 1944 and televised in the early 1950s.
Mr. Boyd, a Cambridge, Ohio, native, wore black clothes and rode a white horse named Topper. The cowboy was named for his bad knee, where he was shot, of course, by cattle rustlers. Mr. Boyd died in 1972.
Ten-cent children's Hopalong books, like Hopalong Cassidy Lends a Helping Hand, are going for $18 at Signs of Our Times, Lebanon, where a Hopalong cap gun (no holster) is priced at $134.
But the most highly sought guns go for as much as $600, says Signs owner Michael Longoria. And a "double-bubble" wall clock, manufactured in Cincinnati to promote "Hoppy's Favorite Milk" is worth $2,500.
Hopalong Cassidy: King of the collectibles
