Western Saddle ID - “V” tooled on fender

[MeganShortLDR]

Help ♥️

I’m hoping you can help me. I have a saddle that I’ve had since my teens (I'm almost 40 now). I’m the second owner and the woman I purchased it from said she bought it new and it was a “Bennie Veach”. She has since passed.

I can find a lot of Veach saddles, but not a Bennie. The saddle doesn’t have a mark that I can locate -  but it does have a very beautiful tooled and stitched V  on each fender. 

Are you able to verify for me if this in fact a Veach? It’s the most incredible saddle I’ve owned and fit our gelding like a glove.

 

THANK YOU!!

[bruce johnson]

That could be a Ben Veach saddle. Definite old school but he was a maker that progressed with the times too.  Ben had been around but at one time was building out of Brackney's Western Store in Greencastle IN. After Brackney's closed he went to a shop set up on a farm I think by Terre Haute. I spent 6 years at Purdue and for no real reason I never went down to Brackney's that I remember. I know he had been in other parts of the country before that but really not a bunch of history out there I found other than Indiana. I talked to him a couple times when I ordered his stirrup buckles.  Ben developed and patented a stirrup buckle. I liked them for some saddles and particular riders. 

[sheathmaker]

Ben was the son of Monroe Veach as well as a personal friend of mine.  Before he moved to Greencastle, In. he set up a shop in his garage here in Kerrrville,Texas where he built the first saddle that I bought from him.  He and I became good friends while he was here in Kerrville.  His one piece stirrup buckle was one of the best ideas and I used them exclusively when they were distributed.  If I recall they were called the 'Veach Fast Buckle" and they were superior to anything else at the time such as Blevins. He, along with Don Atkinson was greatly responsible for me learning to build a saddle or two. Don Atkinson was another close friend of both Ben and me.  Don was 'raised" in Monroe Veach's shop in Missouri along with Bennie. Monroe considered Don almost family.

By the way Yes, that saddle looks very much like the Ben Veach style

 

 

Edited June 28 by sheathmaker