By Nick Pernokas 

Daniel S. Preston passed away on the morning of October 14, 2022, in a hotel in Chapala, Jalisco, Mexico. The former owner and editor of ShopTalk! magazine died as he had lived, a solitary man. By now you’ve realized that this isn’t going to be a “hearts and flowers” kind of obituary. Dan would have kicked my butt if it was. 

I was friends with Dan for over 20 years and we spoke frequently. I never really knew Dan though, but I’ll do my best to tell you what I did know. 

Dan came from a railroad family that moved around a lot. He liked to use his hands, so his first jobs were as a carpenter and then a pipe fitter. Dan was well educated, receiving a BA at Madison College and then his master’s at the University of Virginia. Dan taught English for a while and then went to the State University of New York to get a PhD in creative writing. Dan seemed destined for a career in higher education. He had also discovered a love for leatherwork, though, and it became a profound influence on his life. 

“I started messing around with leather when I was in high school,” remembered Dan in 2017. “I never did it as a hobby; it was always a business.” 

When Dan had free time away from the military high school he attended in Virginia, he would go over to a local saddle maker’s shop in Chatham, Virginia, and watch him work. Dan learned a few techniques and bought some leather from the saddle maker. In the late 60s, leather accessories were in vogue and soon Dan was making simple purses, vests and hats. 

After high school, Dan moved to Harrisonburg, Virginia, where there was a large Mennonite community. Dan found out about an older Mennonite harness maker, Lewis Martin, and started going over to his shop. Since Dan was hanging around, Lewis rented him space to do his leather work. Soon, Dan was doing better quality custom work for himself, as well as working for Lewis part time. Lewis made buggy and work harness, and repaired everything else. Dan was able to work on saddles and other tack, but he received a priceless education on building harness. 

Dan then moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, for school and went to work for Earl Lloyd, a maker of fine harness in Keswick. He followed this with a stint at the shop of Lew Williams. 

After Dan got his master’s degree, he taught at several universities. He moved to Richmond, Virginia, where he also worked part time as a clicker operator for Sea Dream Leather. Sea Dream Leather made personal leather goods that were sold through their stores at malls and outlets. 

After Dan received his PhD, he was employed in several teaching jobs. It was a hard time to be a teacher because there were so many qualified applicants for every advertised job. By now, Dan also had a healthy resume in the writing and publishing business. He’d written material for the Virginia Department of Tourism, the Voice of America and had sold numerous short stories, articles and poems. Still, it was hard to make ends meet. As his last teaching contract wound down in the late 80s, Dan decided to transition into the leather business full time. 

Dan opened his first full-time shop in Cullowhee, North Carolina. Business was good, but Dan was still teaching a little at night. One day, he received a note in the mail. It began, “Free to a good home…”  Leroy Sensenig, a Pennsylvania harness maker, had started publishing a four-page mimeographed newsletter for harness makers in 1984. Four years later, Leroy had grown tired of publishing The Harness Shop News. He offered it to Dan. 

“He wasn’t very hopeful about it, but I saw the potential of it,” remembered Dan. 

Dan already knew how to research, write and publish. He also knew about leather. The newsletter fit like an old glove.  

“It matched my skills and there wasn’t anything else like it at the time. I took it very seriously and really worked at it.” 

Dan reworked the look and format of the newsletter. It still was only 8 or 12 pages, but Dan would cut it out and paste it up for printing, so everything was neat. While Leroy had given it away to advertise his hardware business, Dan began to charge for subscriptions. Within a year or two, it had a cover and more of a magazine format. For a number of years, Dan did all the writing, marketing and the set up. Eventually, Dan changed the name to ShopTalk! because many people thought it only covered the harness trade. This opened it up for more advertising from the leather industry, because the magazine was no longer seen as catering only to harness makers. 

Dan founded the Proleptic Company, which became well known for the large library of leather-related books and tools that they sold. Dan needed something to call his corporation. Dan liked to play with words; so, he settled on “Proleptic” from the Greek word prolepsis, meaning the way in which one prepares for what is coming in the future by looking at what has come before.  

My Buyer’s Guide was the next innovation that Dan tried. It started out as a small flyer once a year that listed suppliers. The guide went out to all the subscribers, as well as 16,000 retailers and manufacturers worldwide. By 2016, it was a 162-page catalog of everything you might need if you were in any facet of the leather business.  

In addition to selling books on the leather industry, Dan wrote a series of “How To” books. In 2005, Dan and his former boss, Lewis Martin, wrote Making Harness. This 460-page illustrated manual became the “go to” book if you wanted to learn to make harness. 

“That book wouldn’t have been possible without Lewis. It was his expertise that made it so good. It probably didn’t make financial sense to do it, but I felt it was important to preserve that knowledge. Someone can struggle for years trying to do something, and if you can show them a way to do it in five minutes, that’s really giving them a leg up.” 

Around 2002, Dan began buying and refurbishing old leather tools. He would then offer them for sale once a year through ShopTalk! He enjoyed working on the items he picked up and felt that he was helping the readers out, by giving them access to old tools that they wouldn’t see otherwise. 

ShopTalk! also promoted the Saddle Makers and Boot Makers Round Up that was held in Texas. Dan provided free advertising to the show. He also supported The Harness Makers Get Together, a few smaller events, auctions and he put on some English saddle making seminars. 

In all of Dan’s entrepreneurial efforts, the goal was to unify the very diverse elements of the leather business. 

“I think we made a positive contribution to the industry. We’ve linked people together. That provided some protection to the smaller shops who would now call if they had trouble dealing with an unscrupulous individual or company. They knew they had someone who would listen. ” 

Dan succeeded, and today a lot of craftsmen and companies that might not have been aware of each other before have become part of the worldwide network of leather workers.  

“I’ve always thought the articles we did were good journalism. They never were just fluff pieces or filler. We maintained a high level of quality which, for a small magazine, is quite an accomplishment.” 

I worked for Dan for about 16 years. In that time, he was able to juggle health problems, financial problems and magazine deadlines to keep ShopTalk! going. Few people realize just how lean it was for Dan at times. On the other hand, he was extremely generous when things were good. I only have to look at his gift of the antique bone-gripped, hand-engraved Osborne draw gauge on my bench to remember that. 

In 2017, Dan sold ShopTalk! and retired. He wanted to pursue a career in photography, which he did in southern Mexico. He liked to walk the bull rings, the charreadas and the streets of Chapala, and get candid photos of people in their everyday lives. His photos were full of colorful characters, cats and children. Dan also worked on calendars, children’s books and even an idea for a screenplay, but capturing life on film was his first love. He occasionally crossed back into the U.S. to take care of business, and on one trip stopped by our ranch for supper. Dan picked up one of the last issues of ShopTalk! that he had edited from my coffee table and studied the glossy cover. 

Dan looked at me and said, “Damn, did we do that?” 

Dan passed away at 68, after a long battle with cancer. He had a funny sense of humor and a couple of months before he died, he sent me an email. He asked me to work in the words “a symbol of triumph and hope for the community” into his obituary. He cautioned that “a shining light” might be over the top. So now I have mentioned it and my job is done. I’ll leave it for the community that he loved to decide which descriptions fit him the best. 

Dan leaves behind two brothers and a daughter, Lillian Preston.