Black Diamond; The One That Got Away
Sometimes you find an absolute "belter" of a buckle — one that has it all.
Patina.
A cracking story, and that raw, honest feel that just screams Patina Culture.
The one that summed all of this up was Black Diamond.
I didn’t want to sell it.
But Mike — aka Sexy Gandalf — made me an offer I couldn’t refuse on the Vera Black stand at Firevolt. The offer I couldn't refuse was that he loved it as much as I did.
I can’t wear them all, and as Amy keeps reminding me:
“Stop getting high on your own supply.”
So I let him go. Paired him up with an Irongrain belt, tailored exactly to Mike's size and cut to length. That's how I do things.
The Buckle with the Bison Soul
Black Diamond wasn’t just a name I gave it — it was a callback to the real Black Diamond, an American Bison who posed for the reverse of the famous Buffalo Nickel coin, minted from 1913 to 1938.
In 1913, a sculptor called James Earle Fraser was commissioned by the U.S. Mint to design a new five-cent coin. Born in Minnesota and raised on the American frontier, Fraser saw the old West. His father was an engineer who helped lay railroad tracks across Native land and Fraser grew up watching the expansion of the New America and the destruction of the Indigenous one.
He carried those images with him his whole life.
On one side: a composite portrait of three Native American chiefs — a powerful nod to dignity, pride, and resistance.
On the other: a hulking American bison, modelled after Black Diamond, a buffalo from the Bronx Zoo — once wild, now caged.
“I wanted to use a design that was uniquely American — something that couldn’t be mistaken for a coin from any other country.”
— James Earle Fraser
Fraser knew he couldn’t come right out and criticise the government in 1913 — not as a public artist.
But he sabotaged the coin's longevity on purpose.
He deliberately raised the details — the nose of the chief, the buffalo’s shoulder, the “FIVE CENTS” inscription — just high enough that they would wear down quickly in circulation.
And they did.
Most Buffalo Nickels didn’t survive a decade before the dates and faces were rubbed blank — like a physical metaphor for the erasure of Native American identity and land. Many believe it was Fraser’s quiet rebellion — a reminder that nothing built on injustice lasts forever.
Powerful, and it's why this buckle meant a lot.
There are others like it. Not many. But they’re out there.
I'm keeping the next one.
This isn’t fast fashion. The buckle was cast in Chicago in 1974, and this buckle has held up jeans over winters in Detroit and summers in Wichita since the days of Richard Nixon.
Now it's being cared for by Mike, and look how pleased he is
These are the kinds of finds I live for.
And I’ve got a good eye. I've been collecting them since I was a teenager and It’s taken years of digging through boot sales, (and now online) learning what’s real, what’s rare, and what just feels right.
Don’t Miss the Next One
If you’re reading this and thinking “Shit, I’d have bought that Black Diamond buckle in a heartbeat”— then you need to get on the mailing list.
What will be next in the vault?
I don’t do mass runs.
I don’t chase trends.
When I find something special — something with weight, history, and patina — I drop it, and it goes fast.
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Just the kind of gear that gets better the longer you wear it.
[Sign up now] — and don’t miss the next Black Diamond.