Pawn Stars - Parade Saddles

[Tamara_in_TN]

[QUOTE=To the MAX;5179199]
I love how he always has “buddies” that are experts in every field.
And the guy said the saddles weigh like 100 lbs! I bet the horses dreaded being in parades.
I too thought they would be much more expensive.[/QUOTE]

funny little side note to the show…remember the antique corn sheller ?

funny how none of them understood it was for shelling hard dent corn and not human eating corn…so the sheller made a huge mess of the soft corn and they said something about “creamed corn”

well, that totally lit the Ag Boards up and the point was raised that if they could botch a simple corn sheller up that well what else did they totally drop the ball on??

I was feeding horses last night when the saddles ran and only caught the “payoff”

Tamara in TN

[Alagirl]

@bludejavu;5179617

SA - the croup pieces are called hip drops, the panels that extend from under the saddle are called serapes. Considering the market, $6,000 was probably about on target although he can turn around and sell those sets at a good profit, being in California where parades are so prolific. What probably couldn’t be seen was whether the silver matched up completely, whether it was dinged or dented, and if the leather had any dry rot or not - TV cameras don’t catch those details too well.

I watch that show a good bit with my DH but it figures I’d miss the episode that would interest me the most.

I thought they were in Vegas.

But yeah, that’s the way it goes.
I would have missed it though if my husband had not called me from work ‘hey they got a Steiff bear on there said it would be worth…dollars’

[bludejavu]

Oh - you’re probably right - they may be in Vegas. I don’t watch often enough and was thinking it was California but Vegas sounds right. I’m an Antiques Roadshow girl - can miss all the other stuff but not AR!

[Alagirl]

Vegas is like Cali, just a bit further in the desert!

[SmartAlex]

[QUOTE=Tamara in TN;5179622]
funny little side note to the show…remember the antique corn sheller ?

funny how none of them understood it was for shelling hard dent corn and not human eating corn…so the sheller made a huge mess of the soft corn and they said something about “creamed corn”[/QUOTE]

Yup, I remember it.

And there was a pre-1950s Coca Cola machine… they took it to their restorer (who now has his own show incidentally) and in one week… Voila’ he had made it into a completely different coke machine. Same manufacturer, but different model. There is a lot of smoke and mirrors on these shows to make them interesting to the general public, but when it something you are familiar with, the curtain gets pulled away.

[Bearhunter]

Yes, the shop is in Vegas. We visited it and it looks nothing like it does on t.v.

[apprider]

Bludejavu, loved your website, it was like a trip back through time for me. The lady that taught me to ride had Saddlebreds and did parade classes with them. The tack was amazing, all sterling and it took a small crew hours to polish it and get ready for a show.

[Alagirl]

@SmartAlex;5179695

Yup, I remember it.

And there was a pre-1950s Coca Cola machine… they took it to their restorer (who now has his own show incidentally) and in one week… Voila’ he had made it into a completely different coke machine. Same manufacturer, but different model. There is a lot of smoke and mirrors on these shows to make them interesting to the general public, but when it something you are familiar with, the curtain gets pulled away.

LOL, what kills me, any other thing they throw their hands up if you clean it or try to restore it, but those old coke things, by the time they are done you can’t tell if they are new or old anymore! :lol:

[danceronice]

[QUOTE=copper1;5179432]
I love that show but always wonder why people expect the owners to give the fair market value! The shop owners need to make a profit and why would you take an expensive item to a pawn shop when you could get so much more at auction or private sale? I think a lot of those who bring stuff into that particular store need the $$$ ASAP to either go gamble or pay off gambling debts![/QUOTE]

That cracks me up, too. I do small-time antiques/collectibles dealing and the whole point is you buy and mark up. My goal is buy as low as possible, sell as high as possible. And when you allow for the overhead involved in a pawn shop, heck yeah, Rick has to make a profit! Not to mention, he (and anyone who deals) has to consider not only the ‘book’ value on an item, but the likelihood of selling it and what the CURRENT market will bear, plus the cost of keeping inventory. (Example, if I can just get Dad to come down iwth the big van, I can get a five-piece 1950s bedroom set for dirt cheap at a local store, because he picked it up cheap and just wants to move it out ASAP. Whereas in the current market, the vendor at another store asking old fair-market for similar pieces is I suspect gonna be holding his inventory for a LONG time.)

With the estimate being lower than some people on here think–right now, I bet expensive super-speciality items aren’t moving. They’re in Las Vegas (next time I visit my friend out there I wanna go rubberneck, but I’m not gonna try negotiating anything with Rick or the Old Man!) and the economy out there is a DISASTER. Looks shiny to toursist, but it’s the single worst housing market in the country and it’s not getting better lately. I’m thinking that there is not a big demand for high-ticket sales. Heck, right now even little stuff on ebay is like pulling teeth. (However, if you are buying big-ticket long term antiques, now is the time to buy.) Only really, really rare items with proven long-term value (like a Van Gogh or something) are still going to command huge prices, and Rick and the Old Man don’t generally deal with that sort of thing. Like the sunken-treasure rupees–really cool, but he passed because he’d never sell them and would have sunk something like a quarter-mil in.

And yes, love the show. Especially the Old Man. He cracks me up. (And I loved it when they went to look at the roping dummy and Chumley pwned Big Hoss by actually roping the fake calf!)

[bludejavu]

@apprider;5180054

Bludejavu, loved your website, it was like a trip back through time for me. The lady that taught me to ride had Saddlebreds and did parade classes with them. The tack was amazing, all sterling and it took a small crew hours to polish it and get ready for a show.

Thank you, parade horses are my hobby and passion…can you tell.:lol:

[rideagoldenpony]

[QUOTE=SmartAlex;5179695]

And there was a pre-1950s Coca Cola machine… they took it to their restorer (who now has his own show incidentally) and in one week… Voila’ he had made it into a completely different coke machine. Same manufacturer, but different model. There is a lot of smoke and mirrors on these shows to make them interesting to the general public, but when it something you are familiar with, the curtain gets pulled away.[/QUOTE]

My husband and I STILL joke about that one! He calls that guy “the guy who can take a Coke machine and restore it into a tampon dispenser!” LOL

I thought the parade saddles looked really nice, but kind of a small market. Still, I’d let one sit around in my living room to be admired if someone wants to give me one. :lol: :lol: :lol:

[Come_Shine]

I love this show, too. It’s neat to see the wide array of things that people have and are interested in.

Wish I would have seen the episode about the saddles.

Bludejavu: How beautiful! Wow.

[Go_Fish]

[QUOTE=bludejavu;5179509]
I didn’t see the episode but the price given means they were most likely made by Ted Flowers and are not sterling. A top sterling parade set made by Edward Bohlin, who was considered one of the best parade saddle makers of the time, will command much more money even in today’s market. My husband and I collect Ted Flowers sets and most of them range anywhere from $3,000 to $8,000. Occasionally one will sell for more but because he didn’t make many sterling sets, pricing is more reasonable - at least by parade saddle standards.;)[/QUOTE]

Yep…saw the episode last night and the “metal” wasn’t even nickle-silver. I would imagine if the “metal” was sterling, or even plate or overlay, they would have brought a higher price.

[GoodyTwo]

I much prefer American Pickers to Pawn Stars which, to me, seems ridiculously scripted - I mean really, who is as dumb as Hoss or Chumlee or the Old Man… The guys on Pawn Stars picked up a really nice old saddle as well.

[danceronice]

LOL, the Old Man is quite sharp (as he frequently reminds Chumley and Big Hoss.) As for who is as dumb as Chumley…let’s just say that I don’t find it all that surprising.

American Pickers is like my dream job. (Except I could not pick in some of those buildings because all I would be thinking about is OMG BROWN RECLUSE BLACK WIDOW SNAKE HIDING BACK HERE AIEEE.)

I wonder if they ever find Breyer models or buy them. I was antiquing and Goodwilling this weekend (they are so verbs) and at the antique mall a couple vendors had Breyers whose prices were…wildly optimistic to say the least. About the only priced fairly was a 1995 Breyerfest LE MIB ($75) and I didn’t even ask to price a very old gold-fleck Hackney in a case where I couldn’t see the tag but could see he was in VG condition. Another vendor, otoh, had four models, all dirt-common, all priced $25 or $30, most with severe body rubs and one with a broken ear and missing paint on the face! Pretty much worth about $5 each to someone who R/RHs or someone who wants ones they won’t feel guilty letting toddlers play with. If the booth owners had been around I’d have said something and argued the point.

Another booth had a hideously bad saddle tree–basically warped wood and a rusted horn. I don’t think there’s even any decorator value. To keep this thread horse-related, anyone else seen any really good/bad/bizarre/weirdly mislabled horse-related items in antique malls, goodwills, etc?

[SmartAlex]

[QUOTE=danceronice;5180756]
LOL, the Old Man is quite sharp (as he frequently reminds Chumley and Big Hoss.) As for who is as dumb as Chumley…let’s just say that I don’t find it all that surprising.[/QUOTE]

We’re pretty sure Chumley is faking it, and can deliver a line pretty well. The Old Man drives a hard bargain.

What I like is that if something is worth a lot more than what the person wanted, they tell them. Same with the Pickers. They do take chances with some of their purchases. But, there are a lot of people researching and working on both those shows behind the scenes. Pickers (some gal named Julie in the office) called a friend of ours when they were in our area. He had stuff listed on CL, and they were scouting for options if they came up dry on other locations. They never showed up in the end, but they caused quite a stir in town, and upset some local pickers when they picked the unpickable ;).

I like seeing the horse related stuff. One lady Pickers visited had been a trick act. They showed her saddle, and photos of her horse.

Pickers also picked up a taxidermy horse, the size of a mini or foal, which turned out to be a saddle maker’s window display.

[GoodyTwo]

My husband is an antique picker/hobbyist and American Pickers is his dream job too. It’s my worst nightmare – all that dirt and grime and possibility of unintentional meetings with spiders.

The Old Man… he may be sharp, but he talks too slowly for me to believe it.

We’ve picked some cool Johnny West toys from the 60s/70s at garage sales and they usually sell well. I also got an ancient pony saddle that I just let go to a friend to see if her kid could use it as I didn’t have the energy to try and revive it. The best find for me is old horsey books… like first editions of classics. Oh, and an ancient pair of western “pre-SPCA” spurs that had rowels on them as long as fork tines. Those sold well too. I only hope they didn’t sell to a rider.

[SmartAlex]

My husband and I, and my mother and step-father pick too. Step-father used to manage the transfer station… lots of good trash. And a few friends and family are hoarders and now and then will allow us to come through so they can afford to go buy more junque.

At one point I think my mother had like 9 antique saddles. She finally sold most of them (at a good profit). Picking is a lot of fun, and you can make some pretty good money now and then, but it makes your place look like those ones on TV.

[Alagirl]

@SmartAlex;5180858

My husband and I, and my mother and step-father pick too. Step-father used to manage the transfer station… lots of good trash. And a few friends and family are hoarders and now and then will allow us to come through so they can afford to go buy more junque.

At one point I think my mother had like 9 antique saddles. She finally sold most of them (at a good profit). Picking is a lot of fun, and you can make some pretty good money now and then, but it makes your place look like those ones on TV.

Hearing a TV theme in the back…
wait a minute…
it’s getting clearer…

Ohhh, right!

SANFORD AND SON…

:lol:

[danceronice]

They HAVE to do more prep than they admit on American Pickers (and they also come across as even more scripted at times–for example the abrupt discussion of ‘women they find hot’ seemed VERY out of left field–betcha someone’s been reading the intrawebs.) Oh, the display horse reminds me, there was a horsehide rocking horse at the antique mall! My friend and I both loved it (neither of us loved it $325, but we loved it.) Though I suppose that would not be a good thing to have something in a house with cats who view anything that holds still long enough as a scratching post.

The one that STILL gets me was Dad and I unknowingly passing up a Buena Vista saddle at a flea market. If I ever see it again, now that I know what it is, and I can get it for what he wanted for it then…Six months later when I visited W&L and we went to the VHC, there was one under glass. I’m STILL kicking myself.

Craigslist I am not a huge fan of as it’s a real crapshoot. (And not a few people, uh, including me, on there know EXACTLY what we’ve got and what fair market for it is and you’re not getting a deal.) It’s such a gamble especially if you’re somewhere you have to drive a lot. I’ve had better luck with yard sales, and with…well, dumpster diving, basically. (Weirdest thing EVER was a German colonial newspaper from 1942 (basically Afrika Korps stuff) in a pile on the curb…in Mackinaw City, MI. That was weird.)

And I admit to having done a 55mph U-turn when I spotted three Breyer models at a roadside sale! (They were all kind of sad, so of course I bought them.)