wiredinUSA August 2013

INDEX

Pub landlord hooked on barbed wire Photographer: Jakub Krechowicz - http://www.sxc.hu/

Americans started to patent it after that. “A lot of different sorts of wire in the west of America [were] used by sheep farmers to see how good they were in retaining the stock, but there was a plenty of wire put together to define people’s boundaries,” he said. “Station owners had their own wire made under patent so it defined their boundaries.” He says he’s not sure how many different types of barbed wire exist, but new pieces are being added all the time. Apparently there could be collections of up to 2,000 pieces with private collectors in the US.

The Spalding Hotel in the Australian mid-north is the showcase for one of the largest collections of barbed wire in Australia. The owners have set up a museum in the hotel featuring barbed wire from as early as the 1800s. Owner of the ‘Barbed Wire Pub’ as it is known, Geoff Tiller says the collection first began with a local enthusiast: “The more I went down and looked at the collection, and realized how extensive it was with 500 pieces of wire mounted on boards as well as another 1,000 pieces just in buckets that I still have to sort through – it sort of just got me and I guess you can say, I got hooked on it.” Geoff says most of the barbed wire dates from the 1860s and earlier, because the

ASIA / AFRICA NEWS

wiredInUSA - August 2013

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