Drilling– The gold coloured, cobalt drills bits don’t load up or clog with antler.Marine Life on antler, artist unknown, Bali Dad was in the hospital for three years, so I didn’t get married until I had every bill paid and found work on the side so that I could give Mom as much money as I did before I was married. When television first came I didn’t mind working on roofs, so I put up half the antennas in town, did big tree work, and put in black-top driveways with the power roller I built. According to Bill, “I was working all the time. His father died when he was a teenager and he took over the responsibility for providing for his mother and two sisters. I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to state that Bill Steckman is perhaps one of the first collectors ever of all things antler, and I can’t help wondering if it wouldn’t behoove a contemporary collector to consider acquiring much of Bill’s offering to keep this precious legacy intact.īill grew up quickly. He is currently at a point in his life where deteriorating health has made it difficult to do the things he has in the past (“I have trouble using a screwdriver”) and he feels it is time to divest himself of many of his creations and commissions. Indians in a Boat, antler, artist unknown, Bali On the homeward journey to Salamanca, New York, Bill’s motorhome was usually burdened with thirty or forty antler sets or more, prizes won in trade for bottles of rum and scores of Swedish knives! What a sight it must have made rolling down the highway bristling with bone!Īnd what has Bill done with his mountain of moose antler?Ĭarved some, commissioned work from others, sold raw at the local Seneca Nation Pow Wow, built furniture blessed by the Pope and filled a custom built ‘cabin’ to the brim, that’s what, and he’s learned a pack in the process that he is willing to share with fellow antler enthusiasts. Returning many, many times over the years, Bill collected “not hundreds, but thousands of antlers” from over 180 families across Newfoundland, each of whom still receive an annual Christmas card from the Steckmans. Immediately impressed by “what a moose could build without any formal education” Bill offered to trade a bottle of rum for the rack. Bill Steckman with antler crown on antler throneīill Steckman’s forty-something year passion for all things antler began innocently enough on a vacation to Newfoundland, Canada in 1969.Įnquiring of a local where he might find a set of moose antlers, Bill was invited to stop by for a visit.
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