rachelh@myweeklysentinel.com
LEROY — Robert Tomlinson of LeRoy is launching a Kickstarter Campaign to help raise funds and begin a lifestyle brand for The Barclay Mountain Company.
“We started as the Tomlinson Playing Card Company back in 2013, but in 2016, we switched our name to the Barclay Mountain Company,” said Tomlinson, who knew he would eventually add more products to his brand than just playing cards.
Tomlinson took a family vacation to Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts for a weekend.
“There is a living history museum about early American history. There, I learned about playing cards that our early ancestors used here in America. Since America was fighting for their freedom, they didn’t want to use playing cards featuring kings, queens and other nobility. At this time in history, they started making cards with people featuring George Washington and other notable people at the time.”
The trip inspired Tomlinson to work with playing cards.
“My first series of playing cards were called the Unrest Series. Colonial Unrest focused on the American Revolution. Civil Unrest focused on the Civil War. Global Unrest focused on World War II,” said Tomlinson.
Tomlinson has lived in LeRoy his entire life and remembers fond memories of being up on Barclay Mountain.
“I remember going up to Barclay Mountain as a child. My grandfather and I would pick wild blueberries on the mountain and go on long walks. As we went on long walks I would learn about the history,” said Tomlinson. “At one point, there was the ice mine on the mountain. It was similar to Coudersport’s Ice Mine, where it would form ice during the summer months and then during the winter months the ice would disappear. My grandfather showed me the approximate location of the ice mine. Unfortunately, the entrance has long since been closed.”
Tomlinson says the main goal of the Kickstarter campaign is to get needed equipment for leather work.
“Hopefully we’ll be able to expand into wallets, backpacks and more complex belts with stitching,” he said.
Eventually, Tomlinson would like to purchase the Old LeRoy General Store as a retail and small manufacturing location for the products. The General Store sits on the corner of Mill Street and Route 414.
“We set a stretch goal in our Kickstarter project of $50,000. If we reach this amount, we would feel confident enough to purchase the building. All people that supported us would have their names engraved on a plaque inside the building for future generations to know why this building still exists. But of course, that’s wishful thinking. We hope to reach that goal,” he said.
If he’s able to purchase the building, Tomlinson says he would like to create a “community workshop” where people have access to the machines where they otherwise would not.
“For example a industrial sewing machine costs upwards of $4,000. It would be kind of like a fitness center but without the fitness machines,” he said.
The Kickstarter campagin can be found at www.kickstarter.com/projects/2060803491/barclay-mountain-project-playing-cards-belts-and-soap?ref=project_link&fbclid=IwAR2riyawb8SOJuxlcBfefP2UUoM3hpjU8S80PkosiTVEyhW__nhRBFGvIMM
“We pride ourselves on having cards in some of the most prestigious museum gift shops in the world. In 2020, the global pandemic shutdown most museums, which forced us to rethink our business plan. We started transitioning from a business-to-business structure to a direct-to-consumer structure late in 2020. With this transition we also decided to expand our product line. For our new product line, we wanted to find products that we could produce ourselves and also products that we could collaborate with other local businesses to produce under the Barclay Mountain Brand. As we move forward, we plan to continue producing playing cards but move our main focus on products that we can produce locally,” the website reads.
Pledges begin at $10 and go to an upwards of $75. A pledge of more than $13 will include a reward.
For more information, see the press release on the right of this article, or go to www.barclaymountain.com. They can also be found on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/barclaymountaincompany