Wallyphyfe

I have one of the exacto knives; but they are not well suited for carving leather. I suspect they were for cutting paper patterns, and other lightweight materials. The barrel is small and long, and the blade is thin and lightweight. Thanks for the suggestion, though.

Those were all of the shots of the harness shop; there were three or four more of individual saddles, with nothing in the backgrounds. I perhaps created an erroneous impression that all of the glass plate negatives that one of the saddle shop owners had taken were of the shop and their gear. Most of them were of other subjects--family members, their ranch, the town, houses, the community--many historically interesting, but not fitting here.

The maker's stamp shown in your photo was used from 1920 to 1950. There is information about the company's history at www.vintagegunleather.com. I would guess that it is a later saddle, judging from the style of the tree, as the low cantle became more popular in the latter part of that time frame. www.cabincreekcds.com has a reprint of catalog no. 35 on CD, which was apparently the last catalog printed before the company was sold. There are a few pages of the catalog shown in their web description, with a few saddles of similar tree design, so that might be a resource. (The CD reprints are quite inexpensive.) There may be some saddle collector websites that would be a possible resource, too.

Thanks. I have developed arthritis in my thumb joints, which makes using a standard swivel knife difficult, and thought a tangleboss might make it easier.

Here are some of the saddles.

Here are a few more, mostly of their saddles and harness, but another of the shop, too.

This may have been discussed, perhaps numerous times, but a search didn't bring up any information, so I'll inquire. I have tried to contact Tanglefoot Traders via the email contact information on their website several times in the last 6 months or so, and have heard nothing back. The website is still up, but I was wondering if they are no longer in business. Does anyone know whether they still exist? Thanks!

Here are some photos that were printed from glass plates; the photographer was one of the owners of the shop, and photography was one of his hobbies. A few years ago, a photographer who had a darkroom and lab made prints from well over 100 glass plates that had been in storage for almost 100 years. They all dated from around 1910. Check out the saddle that had been made in their shop. The shop closed around 1930.