1943 N. Porter All Purpose Saddle Value?

[Margaret Bradley]

Hi Leather Experts! I was hoping for your help in letting me know if this saddle is worth the price tag. It is for me and I LOVE it! But, I want to make sure that they aren't over-pricing it too much. The leather is in super nice condition not just for this saddles age but ANY saddle! As far as I can tell someone took VERY good care of it. It seems everything down to the wool-shearing is original (probably not the latino strings being that old, but they are not new either!). Here's a link to the company selling it with picture's showing the saddle but I will try to post picture's here too. They have the correspondence between the N. Porter Saddlery & Harness Company and Mr. J.T. Stetz about his order from 1943 and a copy of the catalog he ordered it from; his initials are on the back of the cantle. I would appreciate any help you can offer me so much!

Thanks in advance for your expertise here!

Margaret

[oltoot]

If I were you, just to be sure, I would send pictures and history to Mike graham who has the monthly "What's it Worth?" feature in Western Horseman.

I woill be very interested in his take on it but mine is that it looks to be in great, original condition. Without closer examination it is just hard to conceive of the lining lasting this long in that shape.

I would put its value in the $800-$1000 range but would certainly defer to Mike's more current experience.

PS I worked with a guy in Alpine, Texas who had worked at Porters just after the war. He trained there and a couple of other places under the GI bill from WWII. By the time I worked with him he was plumb mature and ________________ interesting.

[BNEWTONP]

My great grandfather was N. Porter. I have the records on 36,000+ Porter saddles from the early 1930's-1960's. The serial number is key to locating the card (containing all of the history) for this saddle.

[Brea]

I have a N. Porter saddle, in very old condition. Just curious when it was made the serial number is 8773