The Barbarians

A Chicago businessman charters a plane to fly over Texas ranch land while he scans the ground through binoculars, looking for valuable samples. A Fort Scott, Kans., man fights off hissing rattlesnakes on his farm to recover a small piece. A tourist from Camdenton, Mo., wanders through a live minefield in Israel intently snipping specimens. All of these "barbarians," as they call themselves, are hooked on one of the more unlikely but fast-growing hobbies in the U.S.: barbed-wire collecting.

Lured by the dubious romance of the rusty wire, some 65,000 collectors are now in the field, many of them members of one of the two dozen local, state or regional barbed-wire associations. The Barbed Wire Association of La Crosse, Kans., has crowned a Miss Barbed Wire and sponsors a world championship barbed-wire splicing contest.

Wide Variety. To the uninitiated, barbed wire is, well, barbed wire. But collectors know that there are some 1,500 varieties of the metal fencing, used for over a century to keep cattle from destroying farm lands. Early manufacturers created a wide variety of prongs, prickers, stickers and other barbs. An expert can easily distinguish a brand known as the Dodge Rowell from, say, Hunt's Double Plate Lock Link. Prices vary according to the age, condition and variety of the wire, and range from giveaways to more than $100 for an 18-in. segment. Rare varieties like the Hunt could go for $1,000 and up.

Barbed-wire buffs often rationalize their pastime by insisting that it gives them a sense of American history. Says Edward Mulcrone, a collector from Hometown, Ill.: "I wish every piece could tell me what it's gone through."

Says John Wagner, a farmer from Sandwich, Ill.: "I didn't think it would take very long to get all the kinds there are." Now, seven years later, Wagner has acquired 500 pieces, and is still collecting.

De Kalb, Ill., which was a major manufacturing center for barbed wire in the late 1800s, is a favorite hunting ground. Armed with metal detectors, collectors forage through old farm land, overgrown ravines and even garbage dumps. Most obey a strict credo: ask permission before snipping a barb, and splice new wire in its place.

The less adventurous swap barbs by mail, using lists and catalogues published by barbed-wire associations. Hollis Gordon, a retired welder from Independence, Mo., wrote to government leaders in foreign countries. His collection includes strips from Korea, Nationalist China and a specimen used in France during World War I.

As the number of collectors began to multiply, Bill Sloan, a rancher from Saginaw, Texas, decided that he could profit from the hobby. He began by selling $5 barbed bracelets, then abandoned that scheme when he received barbed remarks from women with knit dresses. But he has sold 14,000 sets of six swizzle sticks ($12.50) fashioned out of 24-karat, gold-plated barbed wire.

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