Need Help Identifying This Saddle Please

[Rockin B Ranch]

I found this saddle in pretty fair condition. Have several pics of it showing size of seat, roll, cantle, etc. Can someone please give me some information about this saddle?

I can find no makers marks anywhere on it..and I have looked literally everywhere. The horn is metal and is nicely wrapped in rawhide.

I do historical reenactments so the history of this saddle is important to me. Not necessarily who owned it, but who might have made it or what part of the country and what time period is it from?

Thanks in advance for any help that you may contribute.

[Denise]

Wow. That is different! No help from here (sorry) but pictures showing the fork better from the back and front would sure be interesting if you could post them.

[Ken Nelson]

I have no idea of who made it. The leather covered riggin rings tell me it is pretty old. The rawhide on the horn is the tree covering and really; should be recovered to protect it. Unusual for sure. Sorry I could not be of help here. Ken

[Rockin B Ranch]

Wow. That is different! No help from here (sorry) but pictures showing the fork better from the back and front would sure be interesting if you could post them.

More than happy to oblige! However, these will have to do until I can get a few more of the saddle when I'm at the barn tomorrow.

[NewLeather]

Both of the below websites have saddles that look similar.

http://www.forttumbleweed.net/saddles.html

http://www.westernsaddleguide.com/gallery-antique-saddles.html

If need me, email the contact info from both websites and maybe one of them could help?

It looks early 1900's to me, for whatever that's worth :-)

[Rockin B Ranch]

Both of the below websites have saddles that look similar.

http://www.forttumbl...et/saddles.html

http://www.westernsa...ue-saddles.html

If need me, email the contact info from both websites and maybe one of them could help?

It looks early 1900's to me, for whatever that's worth :-)

Thanks for the input. Have seen these pages before I came to Leatherworker.net for info. Don't seem to be quite like the saddle that I have but similar in some ways. Just can't get much info regarding this saddle from anyone.

Any help out there?

[Rod and Denise Nikkel]

For whatever it is worth... Here are a couple pictures of the old saddle that sits in our living room. Rod has owned it for 30+ years now. Rescued it from destruction by neglect. No maker's marks on it either, but the high back cantle, leather rings (front ones used to have leather on them) etc. make it look like a late 1800's style saddle. The bucking rolls have been redone because the leather on the original ones was worn through, but these were made the same, just without the fancy stitching the originals had. (Couldn't afford that on cowboy wages.) Posting pictures of this one side by side with yours for comparison's sake (hope you don't mind my reposting your pictures) shows the similarities between the bucking rolls on the slick fork and the backswept slight swells on yours. There were a couple pictures in the previous links that had slight swells like yours does, and Rod remembers seeing some like that in the King museum in Sheridan. But yours is more pronounced than we have seen before. Just a guess, but it looks to us like someone was experimenting, trying to build the bucking rolls into the fork before swell forks arrived on the scene in the early 1900's. Trying to make a swell out of a slick. A swell-slick. A sw-ick. A swick. Hmmm, maybe that will catch on...

Edited September 10, 2011 by Rod and Denise Nikkel