# Western Saddle Identification



## brandonreinhart (Feb 24, 2016)

I think you could get by doing almost anything out of this saddle. Roping steers might be tough as there isn't much of a horn to dally on and in a calf roping saddle usually the cantle is real low and so is the swell/horn so when your horse takes the jerk of the calf the shot through the saddle isn't so bad so I might rule roping out. If I had to put a guess I'de say this was used for a bit of barrel racing given the height of the cantle as well. As long as the tree is in good shape I think your set to do whatever your heart desires out of that sucker.


As for maker, if you look under the seat jockey (part of leather where your thighs make contact) some saddle makers will stamp their name and a serial number for identification. you'll have to lift up the leather between the underskirt if its there!


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## natisha (Jan 11, 2011)

The concho design, partial buckstitching & cut of leather around the horn are exactly like my Circle Y that I bought in 1976.
Back in the day the silver rope on the front & back along with the darker color was popular. I have another saddle like that that I bought in the 80's & still use.
My guess is, using my memory of decades past, is it was an Arabian show saddle. Back then the round skirts were mainly seen in Arab show saddles or barrel racing saddles but the barrel racing saddles weren't as fancy as you see today or like your saddle.
Good find no matter the maker.


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## Tack Collector (Nov 10, 2009)

Arabian show saddle is what it is. '70s, but hard to say what year. If it was a Billy Royal, that white buckstitching would mean it was made early in the first half of the '70s because after that, they used dark brown buckstitching and stitched everything with dark brown thread. Other brands might have made the older styles into the early '80s.

Brand might be American. Or Buford, or some small regional company. It looks USA-made. The metal lacing on gullet and cantle is most likely stainless steel. The conchos are most likely "German silver" which is nickel, or they are silver-plated. That's not a bad saddle for the right price, but it's an average quality budget or entry level model, and it's construction is probably equivalent to today's High Horse and Tex Tan with the Ralide trees. The tooling is embossed, not hand tooling.

Just for comparison, this is a top quality vintage Circle Y Arabian show saddle with sterling conchos and lacing and hand tooling:








This is a early '70s Billy Royal that has that white buckstitching.








Those '70s saddles and other brands like Victor, Rios, Ryan, Broken Horn, and others, were the top quality show saddles of the day. Saddles like American, lower end Simco, Buford, etc. made less expensive saddles that were more like trail saddles with some silver and some embossing.


This is a modern Dakota Arabian saddle. 









There's nothing wrong with the saddle you have, if you didn't pay too much for it. It would sell for $150 or less or so here, but there are lots of old western saddles to pick from here, too. I'm just pointing out the difference between it and the great old '70s show saddles.


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## YellowUnicorn (Oct 31, 2016)

> There's nothing wrong with the saddle you have, if you didn't pay too much for it. It would sell for $150 or less or so here, but there are lots of old western saddles to pick from here, too. I'm just pointing out the difference between it and the great old '70s show saddles.


I paid $175, but it came with a few other random pieces of tack- a draft horse headstall, a nice dark oil breast collar from the 50's, a set of nicely broken in leather split reins and a pretty vintage black leather headstall with silver on it, which happens to match the saddle nicely. 

For future reference, how would I go about telling if the silver is real or not? I mean, sometimes you can tell just by looking at it, but others it's iffy. Having never owned a saddle with any sort of shiny bits on it I wouldn't know where to start. 

Someone I met who deals with older/vintage saddles said it looked to have been made in the 50's by the type of leather and style. I have zero idea if there's a way to tell by that lol. Whether it was made in the 50's or the 70's doesn't matter much to me, I'm a lover of the unique and weird so this saddle suits me to a T. ??


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