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Question about racoon tails

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This one was hanging from the handlebar of a 40s DX I pulled out of Chicago. It be old and REAL.

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like i said. i live pretty woodsy. ive seen a skunk skin seat cover before in my area so i have seen some gross homemade stuff lol. this would fit right in. but a real pelt like this can really last an eternity.
 
$15 swap meet tail...

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I just bought a racoon tail to throw on one of my bikes. So far its on the electric assist bike..I know its a strange question haha. If my mom or dad, who were born in the 30s and 40s were still alive. Id ask them but since both my connections to the older past is gone. Is there any significance or story behind the bikes with a racoon tail? I see it at car shows too on cars.whats the real story? Anyone know? I just have been around old cars my whole life and seen my share of bikes sporting them too. Just making sure im not accidentally supporting something wrong or weird haha. These days you never know who's upset
A fine question.
Yes; someone will get "Up-set".
Awesome, that you would "Consider" them, and how they feel.
Most of us, here, like the "Old Style" of time gone by, and the folks that lived it.😎
I wear a "Coon Tail", hanging from my helmet, for years now;
they call me, "SPARKY"🥰
Personal blend of all the "Characters": Daniel Boone, Davy Crocket, Peter Pan (never grow up), and Johnny Appleseed: He became an American icon while still alive, due to his kind, generous ways, his leadership in conservation.
Choose well, stay upright, balance is key... on and on; on and on; on and on.😘
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Interesting take on this from a post in the Fedora Lounge. I remember in the 60s all the kids on the block had rabbit foot keychains.

“I suspect this whole thing was an outgrowth of 20s collegiate culture -- raccoon coats, ukuleles, and vo-do-de-o and such. The tails, which were hung from radiator caps before cars had antennas, had the same meaning that fuzzy dice had from the fifties onward -- that the owner of a car so ornamented was a wild-ridin' rebel who played by his own rules, just like all the thousands of other owners of cars so ornamented.

If you google up a novelty salesman by the name of Charles Brand, you'll find a bit more information on this -- seems he cornered the market on foxtails in the mid-thirties, only to have the fad blow over. The craze seems to have peaked in 1936-37, but lingered for a while -- Brand was still selling off his inventory as late as 1948, by which time he'd moved on to be hailed in the novelty trade as the Rabbit Foot King.”

Andrew Wyeth painting Young America from 1950 has a red, white and blue tail on a pole. I wonder how many bikes had these in the late 1940s?
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Interesting take on this from a post in the Fedora Lounge. I remember in the 60s all the kids on the block had rabbit foot keychains.

“I suspect this whole thing was an outgrowth of 20s collegiate culture -- raccoon coats, ukuleles, and vo-do-de-o and such. The tails, which were hung from radiator caps before cars had antennas, had the same meaning that fuzzy dice had from the fifties onward -- that the owner of a car so ornamented was a wild-ridin' rebel who played by his own rules, just like all the thousands of other owners of cars so ornamented.

If you google up a novelty salesman by the name of Charles Brand, you'll find a bit more information on this -- seems he cornered the market on foxtails in the mid-thirties, only to have the fad blow over. The craze seems to have peaked in 1936-37, but lingered for a while -- Brand was still selling off his inventory as late as 1948, by which time he'd moved on to be hailed in the novelty trade as the Rabbit Foot King.”

Andrew Wyeth painting Young America from 1950 has a red, white and blue tail on a pole. I wonder how many bikes had these in the late 1940s?
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Awesome info. I truly appreciate everyone leaving their 2 cents here
 
I think it comes from the coon tail hats we all wore as kids popularized by Davy Crockett at Disney in the 60s & 70s..

pic of me in my coon tail hat as a kid on the way
 
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