CFA Foundation, Inc.

09/03/2026

The History Project, a collaboration between John Smithson (of the Harrison Weir Collection) and Karen Lawrence (of the CFA Foundation) explores, in depth, the stories of cats that had historical influence of the development of breeds and colors.

The latest addition to the web site is the history of Bundle, a blue longhair born in 1891.

Enjoy his story here … http://www.cat-o-pedia.org/bundle.html

09/01/2026

Wednesday. Thursday and Friday this week (September 2-3-4) will be MEET MYRTLE days in the Feline Historical Museum!

Myrtle is a white British Shorthair that loves the sound of her own voice and she will talk to you constantly as you work your way through our museum exhibits. Come and enjoy some time with Myrtle as she meets and greets all of our visitors.

The museum hours are 11am to 3pm. Admission is $5.00 (cash only, please). Children under 10 are admitted at no charge.

Photo: ©Goatseay

08/26/2026

In addition to the exciting 1911 Pacific Cat Club show catalog find, we also already have a trophy from this same 1911 show in our inventory! The copper and silver trophy is engraved "Best Persian Smoke Female bred on Pacific Coast. P.C.C. Show, 1911"

The show catalog listing of entries now allows us to pinpoint the name of the winner of the trophy -- a Smoke Longhair named Brilliant Lassie, owned by Miss E. Gitleben. The Premium List printed in the catalog shows that this particular trophy was donated by Mrs. L. O. Getzler.

I just love it when we can connect all the dots, especially dots that are over a century old!

New pages are up on The History Project web site re these artifacts.
https://www.cat-o-pedia.org/ephemera-1911-PacificCatClub.html
and
https://www.cat-o-pedia.org/trophy-1911-PacificCatClub.html

08/24/2026

It’s always exciting to find old cat show catalogs! We have just purchased this 1911 catalog of the Pacific Cat Club show, produced by an ACA club, held in San Francisco. Listings of the ACA registered cats, mostly Persians, may fill in some dead ends in pedigree databases.

A great addition to our museum’s historical collection!

08/22/2026

Museum visitors today also stopped by our neighbor, The Brass Duck Market.

Just a reminder that the Feline Historical Museum can be open on a Saturday with an appointment made 7 days in advance.

Meet our new friends all the way from Geneva! Three generations!!!! Wow! 🤎

Thank you ladies for making the stop down to CFA - The Cat Fanciers' Association, Inc and to The Duck today! We appreciate you!

08/21/2026

We have added a display case of some of our favorite figurines. Centerpiece is P***Y, a very rare Royal Doulton (HN0018) piece issued between 1913 and 1938.

08/20/2026

Besides entertaining folks in the museum with his agility finesse, Sprite is also helping reorganize inventory files..

08/14/2026

A beautiful painting by a master artist

🖼😻 “Portrait of a White Cat Seated Before a Mirror” by Austrian artist Carl Kahler (1856–1906), c. 1880s

08/01/2026

PERSIAN NEWS was a fabulous historical breed magazine published during the 1990s by Kelly Tanner, and later by Colleen Power, I believe. With deep appreciation and thanks to Gary Schleicher, who is currently scanning the copies of this magazine owned by the CFA Foundation, we are preserving the rich history found in its pages. We are, however, missing a few issues that would make our collection complete. If anyone has these available, we’d really appreciate you sharing them with us.

1992 October
1993 April
1994 February
1995 December
1997 October
1997 December
1998 April
1998 June
2000 April

07/18/2026

The Feline Historical Museum may have been closed for a while, but that doesn't mean that we stopped searching for historical artifacts. Our most recent find is this 12" high copper trophy from the Boston Cat Club, engraved with the names of Best Kitten in Show for the years 1916 until 1932.

Among the names engraved is Greenwich Peggoty, 1920 - born June 27, 1919, (CFF 35) a famous prize-winning Chinchilla Longhair (Persian) in the early 1920s. Bred and owned by Mrs. F.Y. Mathis, this feline was a prominent competitor at early American shows. His sire was Romeo Ard Patsy (CFF 34) and his dam was Greenwich Grey Mist (CFA 3025).

Trophy photo: Orloff Antiques
Cat Photo courtesy of The History Project