I’ve got to warn you, I’ve been down that road and it’s risky business. For me it started when an antiques dealer made me an offer on a holster that I had aged in the same fashion you describe. I didn’t feel great about it, but it amounted to a week and a half’s pay at the crap data entry job I was working. More importantly, the validation. An honest $600 earned at the expense of your pride and dignity simply doesn’t compare to a dishonest $600 that you earn by outsmarting people who are taking you for an idiot.
Pretty soon I was earning an appreciable second income, selling “genuine” 19th century holsters to small time antiques dealers, but that’s not a huge market and people were starting to ask questions. I realized that if I was serious about quitting my job and living my dreams, I’d have to move up to the top tier of the antiques business—Sotheby’s, Christie’s, etc. The trouble is, those guys know the difference. A weapon that’s been drawn in anger by an experienced gunslinger wears on a holster differently than one that’s been carelessly whipped-out by some random buffoon.
To get the look of a gunfighter’s holster right, you need to draw like a gunfighter. You need a target. I started aging my holsters by drawing in front of a mirror. Over and over I would stare myself in the face, draw a gun, and pull the trigger, conjuring urgency and aggression out of my own self-loathing for the dishonest lifestyle I was leading. In the end, it worked. I sold two holsters through major auction houses for six figure sums, which I then used to quit my job and buy a house.
But it’s a kind of black magic—shooting yourself like that, again and again. Focusing your will on your own murder. It manifested in self-destructive habits and risky behaviors. Drinking and driving, Craigslist infidelities. It ended with my house in flames and the right side of my face scarred by the explosion—I had “forgotten” to close the valves on my stove top and carelessly lit a cigarette.
I nearly died that night, but in the end it was the best thing I had ever done. Only when I had destroyed my misbegotten treasures was I truly able to forgive myself and move on with my life.
