Cover Story:
Blanket Quest:
Jonathan Day’s Relentless Search For The Ultimate Western Wrap Up
By Dean “Pillow Head” Bonzani
3-6-05
Like a real life Linus, Jonathan Day is hooked on blankets.
Perhaps best known for his encyclopedic knowledge of Katsina dolls (he authored a definitive tome on the subject, “ Traditional Hopi Kachinas: A New Generation of Carvers”), Day’s larger passion is reserved for the collecting of vintage trade blankets, the sort hotly swapped in “wild West” days, and even more hotly traded in modern times.
A collector by nature, who has collected everything from comic books and Star Wars figures to World War II and earlier firearms and field equipment, Jonathon was influenced by his father’s love of history and artifact.
“I was born in Flagstaff, my parents got divorced when I was real young, and I moved back East with my mom, but visited every summer,” Day explains. “My dad was always into Indians, and visited the reservations all the time, and dealt in Indian arts. He and Phyllis (Hogan) started Winter Sun together in Coolidge, then moved it up here. Eventually, they broke up— she kept the shop. He eventually remarried a Hopi lady, they opened a shop out at Hopi, a real trading post, and when I first moved out, I worked up there. Then I worked at Winter Sun for like eight years, then I opened my own place.”
Day, known to locals as “J.D.”, operates a compact storefront on North San Francisco Street in historic downtown Flagstaff, The Jonathon Day Collection. Alongside the carefully selected assortment of Katsina dolls is an impressive wall of blankets, with more folded in piles. Each specimen is a genuine find, treasures hunted down and brought to market by an obsessive scholar with a deep affection for their craft.
“I love blankets,” says Day. “I’ve always had Pendletons on my bed because my dad always had them. Whenever I came to visit, they were all over the house—on every bed. I thought, wouldn’t it be cool one day, if I opened a shop, to have used Pendletons. You know, like forty, fifty dollar old pawn— just stacks of old blankets because they’re cool.”
Enter Ebay, the opium den of collectaholics.
“I was looking on Ebay, because I look on Ebay for a lot of stuff, and there was a 1920’s Pendleton. I thought, ‘I’ll bid on that.’ I bid on it, and I got it. I was instantly hooked. After I got it, a friend turned me on to a book (“Language Of The Robe: American Indian Trade Blankets by Robert W. Kapoun, with Charles J. Lohrmann), which is not the best book. The best book is “Chasing Rainbows: Collecting American Indian Trade and Camp Blankets, by Barry Friedman.” That’s the really killer book.”
Day’s eventual association with author Barry Friedman has been a major factor in his current standing in the blanket collecting world.
“Barry’s been collecting them longer than anyone on the planet. He’s a comedian— he was a joke writer. He used to write for The Arsenio Hall Show, and was Richard Lewis’ roommate. Larry David— he knows all those guys from the New York comedy scene back then. So he wrote this book about trade blankets and it’s really f**kin’ funny. It’s not drab, like ‘This mill was started in 1912 by an old man named blah, blah, blah…’ It’s not like that. He makes jokes about moths. Even if you don’t like trade blankets, you would read that and like the book. And it’s got incredible photos in it. You can identify lots and lots of patterns and colors.”
Friedman’s book has a photo of Day’s “absolute” favorite blanket, his woolen Holy Grail, a 1920’s Pendleton Cayuse. It’s a gorgeous piece of work.
Day details the specifics that a connoisseur knows by heart.
“If you buy a Pendleton blanket today, and you look at the label, it doesn’t say ‘Pendleton’— it says, ‘Beaver State by Pendleton Woolen Mills.’ They haven’t made a Pendleton Indian blanket in years and years. The difference is, Pendletons are all wool, and Beaver States have cotton warps. That’s the blanket label that everybody sees on a Pendleton blanket. So Beaver State is a brand of Pendleton. They also had two other brands: Cayuse and Blackfoot. Blackfoots were only made in 1924, and the Cayuses were made from 1915 to 1942. Cayuses, instead of being 100% virgin wool, they used a certain percentage of recycled wool. It was a little bit of a lower quality blanket.”
What started as a casual Ebay purchase has turned into a full-blown obsession for Day. How much time does he spend surfing the churning waters of the world’s largest online auction house?
“A lot,” he says. “It used to be, in the old days, you could pick up a blanket on Ebay— a $200, $300 blanket— for fifty bucks. Nobody knew what they were, nobody knew how to find them, and nobody cared. I got in at the very end of those days, unfortunately. I would still say that I put in 15-20 hours a week on Ebay. I have to put in 15 hours to find one good affordable blanket.”
The rewards for such diligence and vigilance are worth the hours staring at the LCD screen of his Apple Powerbook.
“I found a blanket once that was on Ebay that was labeled horribly incorrectly. It was an absolutely mint condition Racine shawl in a very scarce pattern, only one or two of them ever seen before, and it was in THE most desirable colors there are. And there are guys on there that will pay anything for a blanket. There’s a couple— “zuni616”, “timbercreekway”— if you see them bid on a blanket, I just don’t even bother. Because they will pay whatever it takes to get that blanket. They’re really wealthy and they have disposable income. They highest a blanket ever went for on Ebay was to timbercreekway. He’s paid incredible amounts of money for blankets.”
Fate was kind, and Day got his rare Racine.
“He didn’t see it. Nobody saw it. I was the only person who saw it. And I still paid heavily for it, because the reserve was high. But I still bought it at wholesale, or a little less than wholesale, and was able to turn it around in a matter of days, with Barry Friedman, the guy who wrote that book. He’s a friend of mine now. He brokered a deal between (me and) one of his high-end collectors.”
Day and Friedman met over a blanket.
“I bought a blanket that I still have, a little kid’s blanket that I bought on Ebay. I paid way too much for it. His son put it on Ebay, didn’t describe the damage. I got it in the mail and it was all moth-eaten on one side. So his son said, ‘He’ll do two free appraisals for you.’ This was before I knew him. Then I met him at a book signing when his book came out, and we became friends. He would stop in here, and I’d see him at shows. He’s a really great guy. He lives in Phoenix now. When I go to Phoenix, we hang out.”
Through Friedman, Day has a connection to the serious collectors, who rely on the discretion and scouting skills of deal hunting blanket hounds like himself and Friedman.
“He does have these ten really high-end customers, where if I come across a blanket, that if I bought it, it would cost me a lot of money, and it would take me a year to sell it here, I can tell Barry, ‘Look, I found this blanket. Do you have a customer for it? Here’s what I would like to get out of it— anything you get over that is cool.’ And if he thinks that that could be a good financial arrangement, he’ll be like, ‘Yeah, sure— buy it.’ “
How does a trader keep from keeping the objects of his desire?
Day sums it up this way. “I can’t take my stock home, or I won’t have anything to sell in my shop. Like they say, ‘You don’t get high on your own supply.’ That Racine, I did not want to give up. I wanted to go around with it. It was such a beautiful blanket. But it was $800. I did not have $800. I took a blanket home yesterday, a mint condition teepee pattern that Pendleton re-released like, two or years ago. It’s a sweet blanket. I came across it in California and kept it. It used to be that I would take any old ratty thing home, and buy any old ratty thing. Friedman always used to tell me, ‘It’s damaged. Why do you want it?’ I actually don’t mind the damage. I think it illustrates the history, and that it’s been used for eighty years, which is kinda cool. I used to take all kinds of stuff home, and Barry said to me long ago, ‘The best blanket collections I’ve ever seen in my life are maybe ten blankets. But they’re the ten most incredible, perfect blankets you’ve ever seen.’ He said, ‘I know people that have 300 blankets. 280 of them, I would never even want.’”
For the budget-minded, there are still plenty of non-most incredible blankets out there. In the day, trade blankets were manufactured in great quantity by a number of makers, like Oregon City, Pendleton (and it’s Beaver State brand), Racine, Capps, Buell, and Knight. Pendleton remains in business to the present day, the others having gone out of business by the Great Depression, and still produces its wares in the same brick factory in Portland, Oregon.
Pendletons are still a coveted blanket, even among white people. In a now-quaint passage from a turn-of-the-century catalogue for the Racine Woolen Manufacturing Company of Racine, Wisconsin, is this summation of the crossover appeal of these handsome and comfy items:
“For many years the sale of these Indian robes was confined to the Red race. The White man refused to admit that he was attracted by the bright, showy colors, but as time went on and the blankets came into more general use, the Indians’ enthusiasm spread to the White race. The love of brilliant, harmonious colors that is inherent in us all, was finally aroused and allowed to express itself, with the result that we now ship Badger State Indian Robes into every state of the Union….We also invite your attention to the Badger State Shawls which have been standard since 1863. The shawls are made in the sober grey, brown and black patterns for white people, as well as in the bright colored plaids for Indians.”
Another passage explains how the White man came to meet the blanket needs of the Red man:
“Before we took up the manufacture of Indian blankets the Indians made their own, but being handicapped by the lack of machinery and proper raw materials, they were unable to produce the kind of article they desired. The colors made from wood and berries were not fast, nor could a great variety be produced. The Indian woman, with her crude machinery, could not spin the yarn very fine, hence her product was course and heavy, more suitable for rugs than for a blanket to be worn.
When the ‘Racine Blanket,’ made on the finest machinery, and of high-grade materials, appeared, the Red man was delighted. Here was an article which was at once of pleasing patterns, rich in an array of colors, soft and pliable. Immediately they ceased making the blankets themselves and eagerly adopted the ‘Pale Faced’ production which far exceeded their fondest hopes.”
As for fondest hopes, Jonathon Day will no doubt one day have his “ten most incredible, perfect blankets,” and on that day, he’ll be a very happy Pale Face, as delighted as any Red man ever was. In the meantime, he waits patiently, playing online poker between Ebay stalking raids and keeping his ear to the ground for the distant sounds of opportunity.
©2005 By Dean Bonzani. All Rights Reserved.