As necklaces go, this is one of Hutch’s favorites. It was one of those things I thought Hutch wore “all the time”, but surprisingly, its first ever appearance comes quite a few episodes into S3. In S4, he often wears it together with the claw necklace.
Hutch wears it in:
03-08 The Heroes
03-11 The Collector
03-12 Manchild on the Streets
03-13 The Action
03-15 A Body Worth Guarding
04-13 The Golden Angel (with the claw necklace)
04-14 Ballad for a Blue Lady (with the claw necklace)
04-16 Ninety Pounds of Trouble (with the claw necklace)
04-17 Huggy Can’t Go Home
04-18 Targets Without a Badge, Part 1 (with the claw necklace)
04-19 Targets Without a Badge, Part 2 (with the claw necklace)
04-20 Targets Without a Badge, Part 3 (with the claw necklace)
04-22 Sweet Revenge
***** SPECIAL UPDATE (2019-10-09) *****
After finally figuring out that the material of the necklace might be bone, not plastic as I had assumed before, I found out Hutch’s necklace was made by the Californian artist Christopher Miller who has been creating carved bone charms like this since 1973. Miller’s representative confirmed this after I emailed them the screenshots I’ve used in this post. How cool is that?
After this revelation, there are good news and bad news.
The good news first: Miller still makes necklaces like Hutch’s! I don’t usually link any commercial pages in this blog, but after four decades of fans wondering where to get a necklace like Hutch’s, I think this is too precious an opportunity to leave out: Christopher Miller Creations: Face Moon and Star. For further information, contact them, not me!
The bad news is that, in the 1970s, these charms were made of ivory. From the modern perspective, that casts a dark shadow over this beautiful item our favorite nature boy wears. Miller stopped using ivory around 1990 – now they use cattle bone that I suppose would otherwise go to waste – but the past still affects the business so that they don’t ship their bone jewelry internationally because of customs issues around ivory-like items.
While the Miller charms are as close to the real thing as you can get, there are other options, too. Polished polymer clay – off-white or pale yellow – would produce a very similar look, and it might be worth trying to make one yourself or getting in touch with a polymer clay artist who takes custom orders e.g. on Etsy (or keep an eye out if there are “Hutch necklace” replicas made by other S&H fans – I don’t know of any who sells them at the moment, but I’ve heard there are plans).
In my estimate, the moon charm is about (or possibly a little over?) 2 cm/0.8 inches high, and you can see the comparative size of the star next to it in the photos in this post (I think in Hutch’s original necklace, the star is smaller than in the photo above from Miller’s site). The charm has some man-on-the-moon face details on it, and it’s identical on both sides.
The charms hang from a thin, soft, very light brown nylon cord. The tip of the crescent has two adjoining holes, through which the cord is threaded so that it’s shaped like a “V” and remains almost invisible inside the tip. The star has a hole right through it and is held firmly in place by simple knots on both sides. The moon probably gets to move a little, but not too easily if the holes aren’t too big. Miller’s necklaces have a barrel clasp, and the kind where the cord can be knotted and the knot hid inside the clasp are indeed the neatest to use.
The original necklace was David Soul’s own: there have been some rumors about where he got it: from Lynne Marta, from a party thrown by Aaron Spelling… However, I was told that Soul, like so many other Hollywood stars, used to come to the Renaissance Pleasure Faire of Southern California in Agoura, where Miller had a booth, and Miller actually remembers that Soul (“masked, but recognizable”) bought the necklace from him in person. At some point after Starsky and Hutch ended, Soul started wearing a similar necklace where the moon charm doesn’t have any face details. Those are also made by Miller.
I think you are a better detective than our guys, LOL!
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I second that!
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Thank you, Daisy and Mat! In defense of our boys, they didn’t have Google! Though, of course, who needs Google when you can have Huggy Bear?
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So cool that David may have bought the necklace at the Renaissance Faire himself! That sounds so magical, I would love to go there. I was just looking at the website for the Faire and it’s still held in Los Angeles, in a different part, not Agoura Hills, and Pale Moon still has a booth there, along with all kinds of artisans. Held in April-May. If I could ever go to California I would totally visit there! Of course, I would also visit Venice Place and other SH shooting locations. I’ve only been to Cali once, to San Francisco, which I loved.
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A bit of a time travel opportunity here:
There’s a second part to that video, too. The video is apparently from the Agoura Faire in (early May) 1977, so there’s a theoretical possibility that that was the Faire where David got his necklace. Of course, he might have had the necklace for years before he started weariing it on S&H. That happened with the ring we first saw in Survival. I’ve seen it in photos taken already in 1975.)
(I was told that “all” the stars came to the Agoura Faire because it was the one held nearest to Hollywood. Would be fun if someone could spot some celebrities on that vid!)
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I just saw your reply with the video, so cool!
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I just watched both videos. Very 1970s southern California. That’s the Flying Karamazov Brothers before they got famous. Two of them actually commented on the videos (Paul Magid on Part 1 and Howard Patterson on Part 2 talking about the burlap fire, LOL). I was cracking up at the whole “bangers, don’t bang alone, have a gang bang” thing with the English sausages, that was hilarious! I think I might use that in a fic sometime!
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I haven’t actually watched all of them – but I’m glad you enjoyed it! Hmm, how about a S&H story set at the Faire…? I’m sorely missing the plot bunny emoji here… 🙂
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