I would like links to these articles. Where were their sources referenced to? Just because its on the internet doesn't make it true.Originally Posted by GoldenKitty45
In a lot of the siamese articles I've read there were 2 types of siamese in Siam - the street siamese and the temple siamese. The street ones were more of the "old fashioned/applehead" type and the temple ones were more refined. Tho I suspect not as extreme as the ones in show todayThere was an obvious difference. The temple ones were more highly prized and very hard to get out of Siam.
So the first siamese that were brought to Europe were the more common, applehead ones who's coats got really dark with age. Those were the ones that were shown and kept as pets - it was the "norm". Little by little, some of the more refined temple siamese made their way out of Siam and into the gene pool.
It is my understanding that these were tales invented by breeders to romanticized and legitimize their cats and that all the early cats from Siam came from their street markets and were sold for rodent control. When the merchants learned of the romantic stories told by westerners and that they were being shown and valued in the thousands of dollars (A huge amount in the early 20th century. I get this value from a cat book published in 1900 by Winslow) they began using the stories to sell more cats to rich westerners who were vacationing. Showing cats was a very stylish pastime of the rich victorian lady. The husband bred horses and the Lady dabbled in Cats.
This site also has lots of photos of early Siamese. To know what they looked like you really need to look at the Siamese that are before World War II, Pre 1940's.
http://www.craigmcfeely.force9.co.uk...histsiam1.html