About Shinin' Times Powder Horns

Mark at the bench.

Time and Attention to Detail

Living historians run the spectrum from casual, once a year buckskinners to serious historians who do extensive research and who take time and pay attention to the smallest details of the persona they are portraying. To do it “right” requires time and attention to detail. As living historians we emulate the ways of our forebears. We recreate their gear and using it, try to recreate the life of bygone days.

Back then gear was made well but used hard and expected to wear out after a fashion. It was, therefore, a treasure if a powderhorn survived the rigors of use long enough to be handed down through the family. Those horns, rough and simple though they may have been were treated like sacred icons, talismans of the struggle for life, and touchstones for a family’s history.

At Shinin’ Times Powderhorns I create one of a kind, contemporary engraved powderhorns that honor those traditions yet acknowledge our times. Always striving for perfection in the execution of the architecture as well as the art, it is my goal to produce for the reenactor of exceptional taste or the discriminating collector, an heirloom quality piece that will serve the client now and evoke their memory generations from now. The effort is a seamless blending of traditional architecture with highly detailed engraving impossible to execute in great great great great granddad’s day. My horns are meant to be living historians in their own right; revealing nuances of their owner to successive generations. Time and attention to detail. My horns reflect that. I collaborate with my clients to produce a work of functional art, as at home in the field as it is in your collection. All it takes is time and attention to detail.

Please come inside and take a look at the results. If I may have the pleasure of making you a horn, please feel free to contact me.