The Company Man 1780's

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ghamilt1

ghamilt1

A Fixture
Joined
Mar 13, 2005
Messages
1,599
Location
St. Albert, Alberta, Canada
Another of my Chicago purchases just completed. I painted him in these colours to represent a trader for the Hudson's Bay Company in the late 18th century. Comments and critiques always welcomed and thanks for taking a look.
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Cool looking dude Glenn.
What was the story with the coats? - Could this be where rugby jerseys originated? ;)

Happy New Year & stay warm,

Mike
 
Hi Mike. The Hudsons Bay Company had (and still has) a blanket that was a favorite item for trading with the indigenous people in Canada. It was a thick wool blanket with four stripes as shown here, and was often turned into an overcoat by the native people and fur traders alike. As I said, this blanket is still available at the department store ( called simply "The Bay" now) and is an iconic bit of Canadiana that has its roots in 250 years of history. The thing now is that the Bay will no longer accept animal pelts as a form of payment.
 
Hello,

Nice figure. What is its scale and who manufactures it? I have seen it before but can`t remember. Is it La Meridiana?

Cheers,

Patrick
 
ghamilt1 said:
Hi Mike. The Hudsons Bay Company had (and still has) a blanket that was a favorite item for trading with the indigenous people in Canada. It was a thick wool blanket with four stripes as shown here, and was often turned into an overcoat by the native people and fur traders alike. As I said, this blanket is still available at the department store ( called simply "The Bay" now) and is an iconic bit of Canadiana that has its roots in 250 years of history. The thing now is that the Bay will no longer accept animal pelts as a form of payment.
Click to expand...

Thanks Glenn for detail.
Any background on the rationale for the colours?
Fascinating to know this is still available too.
 
Mike - google "hbc point blanket history." A former friend of mine was CFO of the Bay for a few years so I know more about their history than I would like.

Colin
 
Great work, Glenn, I really like this figure. I hadn't heard of the HBC blanket, and am fascinated that it's still available in the department stores -amazing bit of history.
 
Thanks everyone. I was hoping to create a figure that could reflect a little bit of Canada's history, and when I saw this one, I knew it would be a perfect subject.

This figure is one of Best Soldiers offerings in 75 mm. A great kit, with minimum clean and it also has an alternate head of you wanted to portray him as a Native trader
 
One cool story that has a local twist for my little area of the great white north: the colours of this version of the hbc point blanket just happened to have significance for the local Cree First Nations, and so these were especially popular around Fort Edmonton. Other versions (there is one that is red with one black stripe) were popular with rival tribes, and as such would have marked the wearer out as a member of that tribe. So consequently, you would not have seen these other varieties out here in North/central Alberta.

One of my students, who happened to be First Nations told me he has one of these coats that was passed down from his Great Grandfather, which would have been really cool to see. I myself am the proud owner of a 100 year old Buffalo overcoat which was given to me by my grandfather. So there are still some of these artifacts still floating around people's attics out here on the Praries.
 
Excellent Glen,

We were talking about this the last time we had coffee, I'm looking forward to seeing it close up on Tuesday

Cheers

Ray
 

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