Saddles

[monty]

1924 Hamley Form-Fitter listed on Hamley's website about $2475.00

http://www.hamleyco.com/tack/used-saddles

About 1955 my dad traded 5 tons of alfalfa for 3 or 4 sets of US Army harness and a Hamley saddle that looks exactly like this one. Alfalfa was selling for $20 a ton in those days.

I have had the old saddle since 1975 when my father gave it to me. It is in as good as condition or maybe a little better than the one in the photo. Out of curiosity what a Hamley saddle like it was worth I decided to look on the internet when to my surprise I saw this one. I had no idea the company was still in business. I cound't believe the price. I was even more shocked at the price of the new Form-Fitter, $5375.00

https://s19.postimg.org/4qu4m53ab/image.jpg


https://s19.postimg.org/x4zk60qub/image.jpg

[Glass]

craftmanship costs. I would say it's a fair price.

[Tumbleweed]

A friend of my dads had an old Hamley saddle similar to the one in the photo. It was in pretty good shape too but I don't remember what it brought at his farm sale after he passed away. Seems to me it sold for quite a bit because it was considered a collectors item.

A friend of mine that lives at Sheridan called a couple of weeks ago that builds saddles. We discussed the price of saddles and he said he had to have about $5,000 to build a saddle. The materials have gotten really expensive and you get a lot time in to them. You can buy some cheap ones but for a quality or custom made one it's more.

I had a saddle custom made in 1990 that cost me $2150 which seemed like a lot at the time but it would be more than double that now for the same saddle. It was well made and built just the way I wanted it. It was built heavy to stand up to hard use and is still in good shape.

Jerry Croft was the maker of two of my saddles and they are both well built, comfortable and the tooling is excellent. This is a link to some photos of his work and information about him. He passed away of cancer two or three years ago.

https://www.google.com/?client=safari#q=Jerry+Croft+saddle+photos