Cost of materials for a saddle

[CLH]

Denise,

I will email you that spread sheet when I get home tonight. It is set up so you can enter prices for your various materials, then I had it do the calculations. So it will give you different prices for say a $70 tree vs a $500 tree. I also have it set up to figure a wholesale price and a retail price. I hope it works for you.

To add when I said make a profit I ment not make money just to make money. You need to keep quality high, but also pay the bills. Didnt want anyone to missunderstand me. Sometimes I type faster than I think and dont reread my posts.

Ash

Hello and Merry Christmas Ash, Would you please e-mail me the spread sheet to. M y address is haverty1@verizon.net thanks Clint Haverty

[kseidel]

Hey Ashley,

Would you mind sharing that spreadsheet with me as well? I have not taken the time to convert my ledger system to Excel yet, and I would like to see how you have your costs broken down as well.

Thank you,

Keith

[kseidel]

Ashley,

If you wouldn't mind, please e-mail me the sheet. Yes, I really do want to know the costs. A while back someone on here was seriously looking to build saddles for the cost conscious market, and I am wondering what the actual material costs would be if you really wanted to do that - plastic stirrups, synthetic wool, lowest cost leather. To my mind,the materials would still cost more than the $350.00 that seems to be the wanted price tag for a lot of people. (And no, I don't think you could make a living at that.) But when talking with people, I can tell them that a lot of makers have $1500+ in materials into a saddle, but then they say "Yah, but that's for top quality ones." I would like to know the bottom of the barrel price to give them that figure too. Then I can ask the question "If that is the minimum North American material costs, what quality of materials and workmanship do you think are in this $350.00 saddle?" It might make them think a little.

I am in full agreement that low cost is definitely not the best way to go. After all, our trees do cost a tiche more than $70.00. (And that was for wood and rawhide! Makes me wonder what kind of wood and what kind of rawhide. We have substantially more money into the costs of our trees than that selling price!) But for some businesses, using a weaker area of the hide isn't a problem so long as they make more $ out of the end product. That is where the concern about safety and defective saddles comes in. Note: I am not talking about the people on this forum. People who are in any business just for the money are not likely to spend their time learning more about building things better, just about selling them better.

Denise,

Your figure of $350 for the lowest material cost is probably fairly close if using imported goods, but that would be the bare minimum. Only a factory that is set up to mfg in quantity of identical saddles could achieve that figure. When the bean counters get involved, they figure everything down to the number of nails used. If they build 2000 saddles a year and can save $5 per saddle, that can be a substantial increase in profit. That is only possible under strict management, and high volume, using as much leather per hide as possible. Using the cheapest materials and not considering any quality, I believe it possible to get as low as the $200 range. These are the cheapest saddles usually made south of the border, but still in North America. Using only domestic US materials, It would be difficult to get below $300. Remember, even Hermann Oak makes a "utility" grade leather! However, a factory could get in this price range if necessary.

The labor and overhead would add to that price dramatically! I believe any saddles under $800 retail are loss leaders for other saddles in their line.

Keith

[gary]

Just as an aside, I'm not trying to divert or hijack the thread, but comments on bulk purchase made me think.

Some years ago (maybe ten or so) a friend of mine showed me an English dressage saddle and asked me to guess a retail price. The quality wasn't bad, on the surface, and I priced it out at about £125 - £150 each.

He was importing them by the container-load from somewhere in Asia and they cost him £35 each including shipping. He was making a nice profit on each one and there was no way anyone could compete with the price. Okay, there were some problems at the time such as leather quality but the makers started to use better leather, and I never saw a naked tree but, for the cost conscious it was a no-brainer.

Gary

[Denise]

With some behind the scenes help here, to the best of my ability I have figured that for an individual to purchase the lowest cost materials in North America (not necessarily originally from North America) to make a saddle, the cost would probably be around $380.00 US. That is plastic stirrups, fake shearling, etc. etc. For a really good quality saddle, the $1500 to $1800 figures given in earlier posts I am sure are more accurate. Gives me something to think about and base some opinions on when I see the range of prices in a tack store.

[hivemind]

Sometimes Tandy has their imported skirting on sale for less than $100 a side, I'm thinking as low as $80. It might not be the easiest to work with, but I don't think you're gonna have to lose sleep at night wondering if the saddle you made out of it is going to fall apart and you're going to get sued.

IT was on sale a couple months ago for $65 a side, and I'm still kicking myself for not buying four or five of them. But yeah, it goes on sale pretty regularly to under $100 - I know because I watch for it, since one of the games I make armor for requires 12oz minimum thickness to count as armor.

[Alan Bell]

Living in Greenville Tx (the Saddle Making Capitol of Texas) I am right in the heart of factory made saddles. They by their hides by the lot and if they go and pick through the hides then the $65/side price applies if they just take from the top of the stack they may get an additional discount. That applies to hardware, screws, latigo sides, etc they are NEVER buying the heaviest sides and they care very little about scars. The ground seats can use these and their build ups are minimal to say the least! Even though they click parts they throw away a remarkable amount of good leather and I go to their dumpster to get practice pieces to tool on so that tells you how big the pieces are they are dumping! They use Mexican American toolers that are remarkably good at what they do. Their machinery cost are the same as anybodies but they manage to cut cost on just about everything else. Tandy is their "heaven"! They never use real shearling (even on so called 'custom' saddles). I am having quite a time explaining to people that ask me to evaluate their 'custom' saddle that it is custom only in name and basically from the tree up. The seat shape and the carving may be custom but the rest is stock! Tree included! I know this does nothing to help with the answer to this question but it might help explain the justification for the price of the parts a true "Custom Maker" charges vs the factory maker to others reading these post. Even though I am not of the caliber of Kieth Siedel, or Bob, or Clint, or Ashley my cost are the same as I use the very best materials I can and I use 3 sides per saddle to get the best part per piece (and I'm a goober that makes mistakes)! I set a fairly high base price ($2650) for that reason and I don't sell many saddles to my fellow Texans! But I feel that my time is at least worth that of a day laborer at a loading dock! I still drive over the road for a living so I can afford to sit on a saddle until it sells BUT I would try and look at the time I spent learning this craft (and braiding and horsemanship) and honestly consider what MY time is worth (let alone materials) if (and when) I decide to make saddles and tack for a living. There are no millionaire saddle makers......... but there should be!

Vaya con Dios, Alan

[BOB BRENNER]

Denise,

You have run up on the age old question. Custom saddles and productions saddles are like apples and oranges. Unfortunatly, to the general public a saddle is a saddle, thus a $1000.00 saddle with a custom fit. For pricing go to the American Saddle Makers Association website for a guide line -- www.saddlemakers.org and look in the Standards and Practices section for an explination of a custom saddle base price.

Don't let it get you down. For the past 20 or so years I have been making a trail riding saddle where my cost is around 530.00 and retails for $1,695.00 using Hermann Oak leather.

Bob

[olroper99]

OK then...what I'd like to know...How the heck can the "Corriente Saddle Company" sell Wade and Association saddles in their ads in the Western Horseman for $625 each?

Do the folks who make them do it for a hobby...or maybe they are made in a prison somewhere?????

Just wondering...even a cheap saddle still takes time to build.

I think there is cheap...then there is ***CHEAP***...

I bet that's a comforting thought eh....to go out in the pasture and rope a big ol' bull offa yer brand new $625 Wade saddle...dally up to that horn...and then what? LOL!

[Newfman]

Geeze, you guys have absolutely ruined me! A couple years ago, I would have been happy to go down to the local tack shop and buy a "Big Horn" saddle for $600 and ride off into the sunset. Now When I am at the tack shop and the sales girl says, "Hey what do you think of this one?" (pointing to a $750 production saddle) I have to bite my lip to keep from saying, There is now way in 'ell that is going to sit on my horse! Gives me the creeps just thinking about it! To my own credit, I NEVER had any attraction to a 'cordura' saddle! :+)

Even a 'free' education ends up costing a fortune!

I'm not complainin'! Glad to be learning. . .

Edited February 9, 2010 by Newfman