As the Erie Lackawanna Dining Car Preservation Society progresses with the restoration of our 10-6 "City of Lima", it has occurred to us that we will need a considerable number of Pullman blankets to provision the berths in the car.

Reproductions of historic blankets, such as the 100% wool "Hudson's Bay" blankets - which a regular dobby mill can produce - typically retail for well over $200. The complication with the Pullman blankets (both the "chocolate" and "Cedar" patterns) is that they were woven on jacquard mills.

We have done the legwork to investigate the process and costs to reproduce these blankets.

We have found a mill with Jacquard capabilities that can reproduce the blankets, and have offered to do so at a more reasonable price using 80% wool blend fabric. (A considerable price differential from 100% wool, with a pretty much undetectable difference in the "hand" of the fabric).

We need about 60 blankets for "City of Lima".

Our dilemma is the minimum mill run is 500 blankets!

So, what to do?

We have been talking to several institutions in offline discussions about developing a group order.

What we're looking at right now would be an expression of interest to see whether any of you or your groups are restoring any Pullmans, want to stock your display cars, or are looking for a specialty item for your gift shop, to see if we can move those additional 440 blankets.

We noted in a recent survey of eBay 90-day sales, there were over a dozen Cedar blankets sold; most in at best fair condition, with an average sale price of $100. So, if you need to outfit a car (or a few rooms in a car for display), this price does not seem too far out of line, and would get you something new looking, and without that "oldy timey" moldy smell!.

We are looking for a minimum of 10 blankets per order, with working number of $75/blanket, plus shipping. We are told there is a 90-day turnaround at such time as an order is placed.

I would ask any of you or your organizations or PV owners that might be interested in further information, or to express interest in participating in this project, contact me directly at:

jisaksen (at) eldcps.org

Best Regards,
John Isaksen
Erie Lackawanna Dining Car Preservation Society
http://www.eldcps.org

Am I the only one surprised that no one has responded to this thread... Its been 24 hours....

One of our members has found an affordable way to reproduce Pullman blankets... and we leave him hanging...

I know it doesn't work for all of us (our group does not have a Pullman...)

I can't help with the quantity, but as an rrdiana collector, I implore you to have your mill please add some stitching or some easily identifiable "marker" that would readily identify these as non-original blankets. The collectible market gets hit from time to time by well-intentioned groups whose items fall into the hands of the unscrupulous, and then these goods are passed off as originals.

I realize the blend may be the major tell, but a collector new to the hobby might not know this.

Thanks for considering it!

Matt

If I were you, I would send a copy of the proposal to the ARM Parts Newsletter. I suppose everyone thinks that it is a streetcar only list, but that is not true.

Rod Fishburn is the moderator. The first part of his email address is rodfishburn and the second part is @earthlink.net

I spread it out to avoid spam robots.

Randy,

From the time stamp on the posting this was posted at 7-something this (Tuesday) morning. That is only about eight hours between John Isaksen's post and yours. Not all of us readers of the board check it out during our work day. Let's see what gets posted this evening.

The price is not bad, I just checked out a plan 100% wool Pendleton blanket at Pendleton's website and depending on pattern a single can be from $84 to $150.

The cedar color blanket is from the streamline era and could suffice even with a heavyweight car if necessary. Either would look better than a household blanket in a display situation.

For that reason, I think my organization should acquire some for two-three section or room displays. But, I'm not the person to make a commitment for the Museum.

Okay. calm down here...........

I presume he posted this to more than one forum here............

Furthermore, he can't POSSIBLY expect to meet his quota here, where all of us are hamstrung with no real ncome from charters or overnight Pullman rentals............. He wants AAPRRCO, that he does.......

I personally want to hear what a singleton costs (including markup) myself, if only because I snagged a real Pullman blanket at auction years ago and gave it to one of my rail friends to keep him warm. Since I see no signs of an estate auction in the near future, I'd better get on board for a real replacement........

I am in no position to help directly, but I have mentioned this to some people I know who may be interested. But things can often take time in this field. And so it goes.

Sidenote: I'd also be interested in what the one-off price would be for general sales.

Just to add a few things to answer some of the questions posted here:

Yes, the blankets will in some way be discreetly marked to indicate they are not originals.

I am sure we will sell them through our catalog and our on-line store for retail. I think it will be something more than $75 and something less than $100. I would hope that some museums would want them from us to put them in their gift shop. Yes they are a high ticket item, but if you take credit cards I think they will sell as they are just the right size for reading/tv watching/just sitting in the rocking chair.

We don't really have a specific time line on doing this. We don't have $30,000 of cash to do this on our own. If we can get commitments for say half of them then I think we can make this a go. We have been looking at doing reproductions of the original woven Erie tablecloths and napkins - the original manufacturer is still in business and can do them but we have to do 200 table cloths to start. Once we have a working dining car we can make it happen but for now the price/quantity ration is just out of reach. Since the Pullman blanket is far more universal we hopefully can put together a decent buying block.

For us non-car owners, what are the dimensions? (So I might justify buying some for household use.)

Hi, Matt:

As Tim responded earlier, ELDCPS has made it a practice to hallmark all our reproductions as such (with one exception -- and that has an interesting story behind it).

You can see our previous reproduction efforts on our website:
http://www.eldcps.org/store/home.php


Our current thinking is to have the jacquard weave the Society's initials and year in relatively small letters into the blanket at the bottom selvage edge -- somewhere where if it were cut off it'd be really conspicuous, yet easily hidden when making up a bed or folding the blanket for display.

If it turns out that these are a size that I can use on beds at home, I'll stick my wallet out and order 10, with the hope that a few of you near me that just want 1 will bail me out of my extravagance.

Any photos to give us an idea what we're talking about?

Joshua:

Even better idea-- Refer to the current (Summer 2008) issue of 'Classic Trains'. The Pullman themed issue includes a nice article on the Pullman blankets - and a cover photo prominently featuring a Cedar blanket:

http://www.trains.com/ctr/default.aspx?c=i&id=2&iid=34