October is essentially the start of each new year for taxidermists as they gear up for hunting season and look forward to receiving the latest catalogs in the mail from taxidermy supply companies. This year, the McKenzie companies are shipping a record-breaking ten pounds of catalogs between their four enormous books. For the first time, these catalogs contain over 2000 pages of combined information! That means if you looked at each page for one minute, it would take you over 33 hours to view the entire catalog collection.
The big fall books from McKenzie, VanDyke’s, WASCO and Jonas have now been mailed and are currently in the hands of the US Post Office. They should be delivered to everyone by the middle of the month. Maybe it is my background in publishing, but receiving a new catalog is always a personal thrill. I love that new catalog smell! I love opening a new catalog with its crisp, unwrinkled pages, the feel and look of the smooth, glossy cover before it is marred by fingerprints and smudges, and flipping through the neatly trimmed edges.
For the previous 25 years, I was in charge of publishing the annual WASCO catalog, so I can really appreciate all the work that goes into it. I am amazed at the wonderful job the McKenzie staff has done to produce the biggest and best catalogs that the taxidermy industry has ever seen.
McKenzie Taxidermy Supply Catalog
The new McKenzie Catalog 39, is an impressive publication by any standards. Weighing in at a whopping 864 pages, it is larger than many municipal phone books. Since no one seems to be printing phone books anymore, this may be the largest publication that some young people will ever see. It is a beautiful publication, with outstanding photography and graphic designs on every full-color glossy page. With almost 200 new items this year, it is by far the most extensive supply catalog ever published, and it keeps getting better and better. I am amazed at the outstanding job the McKenzie design staff accomplishes with consistency year after year.
Several new and innovative product lines are being introduced in McKenzie Catalog 39. You will definitely want to check out the new 8900 series semi-upright whitetail wall pedestal mannikins. Designed by legendary whitetail expert Dennis Behn, these dramatic new wall pedestals are sure to please your clients with their extreme turn and shoulder angle. Featured on the cover of the new catalog, you can easily see what all the excitement is about.
The new McKenzie replacement noses for whitetail deer designed by Brad Eppley solve many problems associated with mounting deer noses. They provide an easy fit and smooth transition between the form and the nose while offering a flesh-colored septum in an accurate inner nostril detail. Available in both smooth and textured nose pad versions, you can use these replacement noses with any whitetail deer mannikin.
Other new mannikins include more award-winning small mammals from 2013 World Champion sculptor John Schmidt, new Easy-Set Face System bobcats and foxes from Brian Hendricks, and with the addition of the KB Mannikin line, new African, exotic, North American and crocodile forms are now available. Another new innovation for impala and blesbok pedestal mounts allow the forms to fit specifically into a peg system in the artificial termite mound floor pedestal habitat.
Making its first appearance in a catalog is the new water-based habitat paint by Polytranspar™, which has been especially created for the purpose of painting McKenzie’s Artificial Rock Panels. This new Rock Paint can be thinned with water and applied with a brush, spray bottle, or a rag. The colors include a Rock Base color which matches the native color of the McKenzie Rock Panels, so it can be used as an initial coat to even out all transition and repaired areas where foam or mache were used. It can also be blended directly into your mache seam repair mixture so that it will automatically match the color of the rock panels. In the short video below, Rick Carter shows just how easy it is to achieve beautiful results in minutes using the new Polytranspar™ Rock Paint:
Speaking of habitat, McKenzie continues to innovate with their ever-expanding selection of pre-finished habitat bases and Wall Habitat® line. Now offering bases for large mammals, new tree limbs, skull habitats, gun rack habitats, reproduction hornets nests, wood duck boxes, and a gigantic selection of artificial foliage of all types, McKenzie is your one-stop-shop for any exhibit, no matter how large or small.
Looking for a quick and easy way to decorate the back of a pedestal form? Look no further than the new McKenzie Flexible Pedestal Backing Material sheets, offered in three different textures; barn wood, wood-bark, and rock. Just cut the sheet to shape, flex it to match the contour of the form, and glue in place to create a customer-pleasing finished pedestal ready in minutes.
Van Dyke’s Catalog
Van Dyke’s always had a great niche for offering a wide variety of hard-to-find items, plus their outstanding glass eye, panel, mounting stand and fleshing machine manufacturing legacy. Their impressive warehouse and plant is still operating in Woonsocket, South Dakota after 64 years in business. In addition to new habitat items, new award-winning sculptures by John Schmidt and Brian Hendricks, Van Dyke’s still offers a huge selection in legacy mannikin lines from Don Holt, Jody Green, Scott Lennard, Tommy Hall, Aaron Connelly, Tony Rusiecki and more.
This year, Van Dyke’s can now produce custom wood work to your individual specifications in their Woonsocket plant, as well as the 12,000 square-foot custom wood shop in North Carolina! You can create the design, choose the type of wood, choose the finish, and have a unique base built from scratch to match your imagination. The friendly Van Dyke’s wood shop team will work with you from your sketches and measurement to make your custom wood project a pleasant and easy experience from start to finish. With the addition of a new state-of-the-art laser engraving system, many newly designed laser-engraved panels have been added to the extensive product line.
New octagon, oval, and rectangular habitat bases add the richness of finished wood paneling to enhance your mounts. Dozens of new pre-finished habitat bases have been carefully designed to not only be time-savers, but to showcase your work with a beautiful presentation of composition, color, texture, and realism. New fence-post bases allow more choices for displaying game heads on floor pedestals. Not only can you save hours upon hours of design and construction work, you can easily produce a beautiful artistic display just by using these new habitats right out of the box.
WASCO Catalog
The biggest change was reserved for the new WASCO 2014 catalog, which increased over 14% in size to an impressive 384 pages. In addition to the classic WASCO products that you know and love, the extensive product line from John Rinehart Taxidermy Supply have been added to the WASCO catalog. This includes many exclusive Rinehart innovations like hundreds of shoulder mount mannikins with pre-installed eyes by many sculptors including Joe Meder and Dennis Behn. A large selection of rugshells with pre-installed eyes is offered as well. Also new to the WASCO catalog are the 16 popular species of Rinehart Final Generation Fish Mannikins as well as the Rinehart Econo-Line Fish Mannikins, which have been the mainstay of northern fish taxidermists for a generation, plus Rinehart’s duck, geese and upland gamebird mannikins. I was excited to see that the WASCO catalog is now the home of Rinehart’s dinosaur replicas, a unique product line that I had always wished WASCO had offered.
The specialty Rinehart items, including all of the forms with pre-installed eyes, are shipped from the Beloit, Wisconsin location only. All other items in the WASCO catalog are shipped from North Carolina. But all of the WASCO and Rinehart products can be ordered alongside any McKenzie or Van Dyke’s items to save on shipping and quantity discounts. Remember, if you wish to pick up your order at a regional distribution center, you can order items ahead of time from different locations and have them shipped free of charge to your closest location.
Jonas Catalog
In March of 2013, Jonas Supply became part of the McKenzie Family of Companies. Jonas is one of the oldest names in the industry with a rich heritage dating back to 1908 when Coloman Jonas and his brother John founded Jonas Brothers Taxidermy Studio in Denver, Colorado. During the last 100 plus years, Jonas has grown to be an industry leader in both taxidermy and taxidermy supplies. Rocky and Sharron Losasso, owners of Jonas Brothers since 1992, had this to say about the acquisition: “Once we made the decision to pass on our life’s work and the Jonas Supply name, we immediately thought about McKenzie and knew the supply business would be in good hands with them.”
McKenzie is manufacturing and shipping the Jonas products from the Van Dyke’s facility in Woonsocket, South Dakota. Tom Powell, Chief Operating Officer of McKenzie’s, said, “We are excited about being a part of a new chapter in Jonas history and combining the strengths of our companies to deliver an even broader line of products and services to the taxidermy industry.”
The new Jonas catalog is a real beauty! Well designed and easy-to-use, the 288 page catalog features the thousands of one-of-a-kind mannikins that exemplify the result of a century of innovation.
If you are an existing customer of McKenzie, Van Dyke’s, WASCO or Jonas, you should automatically receive your new catalogs in the mail this month. If you’re not a current customer, or if you did not get your catalog in the mail, feel free to call 1-800-279-7985 and request that one be sent to you. Or visit the McKenzie website at www.mckenzietaxidermy.com.