 Hi everyone and welcome to part two of Peter Fisk's private chat for Inside Leather History of Fireside Chat. It's now Saturday afternoon March 18th 2017 and we're at his home in Palm Springs, California. This is Peter's famous or infamous infamous whip room, his whip collection. Peter's going to tell us a little bit about this. We'll walk through a little bit. Peter, I have to say it's incredible. Not only do you have an indescribable collection of whips, but look, you've got these belts, you've got all these other items and artwork on the walls. It's breathtaking. And have you noticed the smell? I do. It is incredible. It's too bad this isn't a smell. I notice right behind Vaughn Treble who's filming this, I'd like to start off with a very unique item you have here on this shelf and as soon as we can get that in frame. You've got an amazing cage mask. May we hear the story behind that? I bought that, actually no I didn't buy it. It was given to me by Paul Klick and Paul was a sheriff's deputy in San Francisco and was very into heavy metal and so I inherited the Skold or Bridal, Skold cage or Bridal from him, he loved to wear it. And also very heavy shackles which I'll show you in a bit and also a full set including not just the four points hands and feet but also including heavy neck and two different very heavy German shackles that weigh eight to ten pounds each. Paul was a big man and a sheriff's sergeant and a member of Hellfire the 15 and I took care of him when he was sick and was with him when he died. And all of that stuff had to be out of the dungeon before mother and two sisters arrived from Sioux City Iowa. I'm glad you were able to save this. While we're here I'll show you now the oldest whip in the collection. Okay. And if you can get in and photograph that it is from Dothan Alabama between 1820 and 1840. Incredible. And it's for disciplining house servants. It doesn't leave any marks it's very feel it Doug it's real heavy rawhide. And you can see the the metal work is is hand raw. It's not how did you done by a you know a metal. I inherited this in trade from a guy who was not into SM but was into gay porn and I gave him a rather good collection of gay porn in exchange for this whip and he told me the family history was that he knows for sure it was in the family by 1840 and it stayed there until I got it from him in the 19 early 1970s so I've had it since then and I'm trying to put good energy on it so I've used it on a lot of people it's still usable it's 175 years old and it's still usable so how did you come to acquire so many whips I mean the the room is literally full how did you acquire well it just grows on you and I am considered enough of an expert that I've been on television identifying help creating a history or provenance for a 19th century whip the program was called deals from the dark side and I helped to praise and create a provenance in history for a 19th century cat and nine tail whip incredible which they had been told was English but it turned out it was Australian and it was not from the penal settlements it was from Australian prisons where they continued to whip people until even into the 20th century and it had they examined it and there was blood on it but it had belonged to a brodom for 20 years and I'll bet it was some of the men she played with and so I have become an expert I can tell you where a whip is from I can tell you the age of it pretty well and that's a good bit of information so for example if I were to at random select one of these items that you have well these are all single tails and quirks and some of them there's a nice long one and I'll take it out for you because this one has history this one puts some marks on my back uh-huh and that's a signal whip but it's a it's a very long cracking single tail whip and there's another one right here that's about five feet long well that will make a back into hamburger and you need to have some accuracy in throwing these single tail whips and then there are a bunch of cowboy courts here uh this one I just got this week cowboys always had a court usually under their arm and they could smack you over the head with the with the way this end end or for beating the wife the horse or the boyfriend was this end this one is probably it's I think it's from Colorado or New Mexico and it's about 1910 my gosh and still quite usable how incredible yeah now how do you tell the age when when you're appraising a whip how how are you the patina the wear patterns you can tell whether it's been used a lot or a little this one's been used a lot yeah it has a lot of wear I can tell if there's a replacement they call these poppers if there's replacement poppers I can tell you can tell if a new a whip is is old versus new this one I got a couple weeks ago and it's a raw hide whip I don't think it's ever been used it has no wear yeah it doesn't feel it feels totally different from the others yeah I'd say it's modern yeah but it's nicely made uh and I always use them on myself first before any of my whips hit any human they hit me so I know what they feel like behind you here there's an interesting piece what's this one this is what they call a ribbon yes it is from Argentina and this is all silver the silver beads all this is silver and you get hit with the strap side these are these are quite wonderful this one is probably 1920s now for for preservation purposes do you have to treat this leather do you have oh I have lots of leather grease I use what's called Picard's okay uh E-C-A-R-D like like Captain Picard and yeah and their leather grease I go through a tub of it this big every six months now and it's a job I I have to have help sometimes just cleaning these whips and in this hot climate in the summer they can't be allowed to dry out how many can you give us an estimate how many whips I know I have more than a thousand but I don't know how many more I've never counted incredible and uh there are various kinds uh I'll show you a few of the kinds this is Argentine we know that yes uh there are some over here you probably would never guess but it is from Mongolia no kidding it is a Mongolian whip it has a friend there's a smaller one that's a horse whip from Mongolia this is a dog whip from Mongolia and probably about 1900 and then uh well here's another Mongolian whip I have three this is the third and where have you how have you acquired these uh believe it or not these three on eBay incredible and then we have uh this whip is dual purpose and it is from Turkmenistan wow and if you incredible it has a great blade on it incredible and fits in and there's a little there's a little hook here that you press down that walks it okay well we'll we'll leave that for a moment and then we have these items are from Scotland and therefore beating children oh my on the hands and incredible they're they're quite severe and I have probably 50 of them incredible they are so much fun to play with now they're for spanking really you don't want to hit someone on the back and then well these are shambas it's this one is from North Africa from Egypt and it's got actually it it may not be North Africa it might be South Africa because it's got a zoo metal work incredible but I got it in the Cairo market so I assumed it was North African see the metal work it's really nicely done it's over five feet long and it is in Shambak in in Afrikaans means whip and this is the kind of whips that they used incredible and they're really quite severe here and fun to use now have you actually actively used every one of these whips just about incredible I don't have broken whips that can't be used all of them can be used and the belt collection which is very interesting I'm into cops I freely admit that my partner of many years play partner and friend Rick dick Carlson was a San Francisco police officer for 20 years and even now works one day a week as a as a special officer in San Francisco and so I got into the belts are very interesting and I use them for play they they do get used for play there's lots of boys who come over here and they want to be beaten with with belts so that's the reason for the belt collection and boots lots of guys like boots I have people who come over and shine my boots sometimes and let me show you by the way we talked about Paul about the heavy metal yes oh my god incredible incredible the hands way about eight pound and each and the feet way about 12 each and I don't usually travel with them anymore because they're so heavy they're so heavy they take so much space you know more belts and there's the light and you see there's a neck yes there's hands and there's feet it's five point wow and I've got a whole ring of keys for all this stuff and it's so much fun to play with heavy metal and and the bridal lot of fun but show some of the artwork in here too yes yes for instance over here in this quarter that is by a man named Leslie hurry who was a designer for stage opera and movies in London and this is kind of what Leslie got up to in his private time and there's there's a vaulting horse where whippings would be done in f**kings and Leslie I think is the is the bottom and it's his ideal man in a rubber police raincoat with a whip and there's dildos and Leslie came up with some pretty fun stuff Afghanistan was a monarchy until 1960s and this is all hand wrought silver and carnation and turquoise carnation there turquoise in here and all hand wrought about 19 excuse me about 1920 1930 uh and belong to a prince and probably should be in a museum and how did you acquire this item I got it in san francisco from an afghan who fled when the russians came in in 1980 and I bought it from him in 1985 and it cost $1,200 then incredible which was a lot of money and that was a pretty good deal actually wow and I've seen some in whips there's one in the metropolitan very like this one and then let's see well this is a fun whip because this is another one from argentina and it's dated 1920 wow look at that and the initials incredible and they they call this which means court and but let's do some more artwork so up here there's a nice one of colter after he won i ml he'd just been given his he didn't get a sash he got flowers leather roses uh and uh there's a wonderful uh this belonged to an i ml contestant jason and I got it from his sale after he passed away here in pop springs and then there's a wonderful one there of colter uh done by torus uh in his harness uh and it kind of pops out at you it's those big eyes of his he used little jewels and they they they really come out tell me about this this small picture right here that's in old sydney it's a flogging convict flogging in old sydney which they do every day at one o'clock oh seriously and the little piece next to it uh was made by chuck arnett uh and given by chuck to alan salby and alan salby left it to me this guy here i've met him once he's a hustler in los angeles hmm uh he's a little older now this was 40 years ago so he's now in about 60 something wow 60 ish and here's my friend this is fun here's my friend rick doing his batman thing uh and he used to he would take a 10 foot whip and uh crack it around this woman's neck uh and pull her with it and it was very you know very intimidating and also very fun for everybody who was there and then i've got porn in the house uh lots of porn dvds nowadays and uh this is the emperor hadrian and his boyfriend antennas uh and here's another there's another cut out there another tom man and this gentleman the real picture is is there and then his picture picture yeah and i never met him but i like the picture and i like that it had another picture attached to it and he is a gay man and uh then here we got colter and uh number two and number three at iml 83 wow that's quite a wonderful picture absolutely and uh just on this rack alone i think there's a couple of hundred whips there's another maybe 300 and here the shelves are groaning i don't know what i'm gonna do uh even these drawers and are incredible look at that uh and some of these will go to the archives and museum i would love it if there'd be a case a display case uh with my name on it and maybe a small picture you know peter fist whip collection and i've arranged that they will get 50 to 60 of my whips including some that are very valuable what about the rest of them though the rest of them are there's uh some friends are going to get and the rest will be sold so people can enjoy them i see okay would you like to see my oldest absolutely uh are my most valuable not oldest we saw the old valuable i don't show these very often and they're going to the archives and you see them when i'm gone but we'll pull them out and you will go ooh cause one more these are all rhino horn whoa from the 19th century every single one and they're very valuable uh in the range of between five and ten thousand dollars each and this is my other oldest whip this whip which comes from uh prince george's county merrill and actually charles county and my family uh had a home there my mother's adopted family and there's a little piece there's a tobacco leaf on the whip it's a ladies riding wow from about 1820 to 1840 incredible in in ivory and still usable uh i use it on uh i use it on nipples and and uh and cb torture and it's really quite nice now how did you acquire these pieces the rhino horn ones i got in england oh we lost one oh from here no it's not that's not the one one of these is without its we'll we'll put that together okay but these are i got them all in london in the in the nineteen uh sixties and seventies late sixties and seventies and at that time they were well mostly around a hundred pounds which was a lot of money in those days a hundred pounds was about 180 to 200 dollars and you can imagine 200 dollars in 1968 70 was a lot of money absolutely but i came across them and couldn't resist and i've had them all these years and la and m will be able to sell them this one there's a uh there's a fox and he's got little ruby eyes incredible i don't know if you can see that but the fox has ruby eyes i should be like focusing on it instead of looking at it see the eyes they're they're ruby and that's all hand work and the rhino horn let me no no no take hand out i'm using your shirt as a oh okay and the rhino horn has been made to look like a like a wooden uh riding crop but it's rhino horn incredible it's me favorite can you spin that really really slow at about that angle i might use this as like one of the openers good spin it keep spinning it trying to get different angles it's incredible work it's about uh 1890 to 1900 incredible and rhino horn if it's over a hundred years old archives and museum will have less trouble because they're nonprofit yes and it's the legacy i'm leaving them but they will have to have approval from uh of endangered species people at the department of agriculture uh and and they have to be antiques and we can't be sold in california so it'll have to be in new york and probably one of the big auction houses uh like southerby's or or and they do sometimes deal in rhino horn items and then legally you can't take them out of the united states they can't go from one country to another and if you do it illegally and they catch you you'll go to prism wow but uh chinese uh dealers are buying up rhino horn and then they crush it up and sell it as as medicine right it's too bad if these wonderful whips i really don't want them crushed up yeah they're fantastic uh this is another nice one this has got a little carnadian stone in it and that's from uh that's from turk menistan or or uh or turkey and then this one little little colored stones wow look at that uh about 1890 it's incredibly intricate and yet i still use them they get to come out and play you know you got to take your whips for a walk you know i go to the park here in palm springs with drew kramer and we do whips in the park uh and it's fun trying to get the light oh i see there's no black background i'm using you for your shirt okay uh the the color is coming out really nice on those yeah the intricacy is is breathtaking truly and i'm still buying stuff you know nowadays i use the virtual market instead of the antiques market no more portobello road no more marine city flea market no more alameda but i buy on ebay now what is the most difficulty difficulty acquired whip that you have probably it's it's very almost impossible now to find chambox there's another one that's really nice wow this one is from north africa from egypt incredible but you can't find them anymore uh and uh there's one of them i have i might pull it out for you that's that's black rhino and black rhino is endangered black rhino is down to let's see if i can find anything oh i think i did well there's there's there's one there's another one here because it's it's fascinating to see yeah here it is both of these actually are black rhino wow look at that uh and black rhino is down to 1500 animals in the world oh my god it's more than endangered it's super endangered yeah but these are these animals died this one i bought in scotland in edinburgh and the man i bought it from it was his father's and his father was in the bower war from 1899 to 1902 and brought it back from south africa and when i saw the man in about 1977 the son he was in his 80s then and he had it uh on the shelf in his in his display cabinet in the shop and i said it's the whip for sale and he said oh i cannot sell it when the when the tough boys come on i smack it down on the counter and they run he said it was my dad's but i finally got him to sell it uh he we didn't even dicker because i said i'll give you 40 pounds which was a lot of money yeah and and he said done take it home and enjoy it incredible and that's black rhino and this one is too this one was a missionaries in uh south africa but uh zimbabwe i think okay and family brought it back and it's a it's been cut into two thongs yeah but it's black rhino no doubt about it uh it's very sometimes hard to tell the difference between rhino and elephant okay i have hippo whips i have elephant whips have rhino whips they're all antique so they're perfectly fine uh you have to be very careful i don't want to run afoul of any government agency so uh and i haven't found one in the very long time anymore they're just not out there kind of like the rhino horn right you won't find a rhino horn whip anywhere now now for how many years have you been acquiring these i started the whip collection when i moved to san francisco in 1966 and by 1976 10 years later living south of market i had 80 whips and a man broke into the house i think a man probably one of our tricks because there were three of us in there broke into our flat on washburn street and stole my 80 whips oh and this gives you a little insight into the kind of person i am i cried for three days and then i said i'm not gonna let this stop me i'll get more whips and within a year i had 140 incredible i just started finding them and occasionally i de-access some of them just like a museum i did that a year ago and people are happy to get them because they're special and i can tell them where they come from and you know a little bit of their history and they have they have uh they have a personality they're they're almost like people so mama has over a thousand children my children are these whips when you left san francisco to move here to palm springs how did you transport all of these are not easily in boxes very heavy boxes and we did it ourselves and uh there is a little bit of a problem you can see from display over here that's ready to crash down i really need to get some whips off of there uh but they're really extraordinary you know uh this one here is a plains indian uh court wow from about uh 1900 wow and uh nice carved real carved elkhorn yeah and the studying which they really liked i don't know what the holes are i've been told different stories some say they're for counting coup but by the time this was made they really weren't counting coup anymore uh some have said it's actually could be used as a sort of a cribbage board hmm i i don't know i have no idea but it's nicely carved and i just love the workmanship on these you know uh this one is from argentina and it's wow it's horn how intricate yeah it's a horn handle so i'm sort of the custodian of all these you know i take care of them i use them and then they'll get passed on to other people who will enjoy them are there whips you will not use no uh i won't use a whip that will really hurt anyone or cause injury uh and but some people can take a lot there's good pain and there's bad pain no i i once had to go to the hospital after a whipping but it wasn't the whipping that sent me to the hospital i got hives from the stress on my body and it's a wonderful story because i got to the hospital and i'm in the emergency room and this this doc comes in who's maybe 30 and i'm i'm 40 it's in the eight zero and he looks at me and i'm undressed and he looks at my back and says why do you do that to yourself and i looked at him and said because it feels good and i like it and he and he said you know you're you're harming your body severely and if you continue doing whippings like this you you you will lose uh uh feeling in your muscles and you won't be able to feel anything well i can tell you he was wrong