Hey all. I am not a western rider by any means. We received a donated beautiful Tex Tan Imperial western saddle & cinch at the local animal shelter I work for. we are hoping to sell it to raise money for our horses. We were told it was the woman’s fathers saddle, and is in beautiful shape. The numbers I found were:
160V
11-25331
Any idea on how old this saddle is?
Very pretty indeed. My uneducated guess would say at least the 1970’s if not older.
I would call Tex Tan and give them the numbers you have. They may be able to tell you.
How much money were you hoping to raise?
Older than 1970s, bucksgtitching was going out by then. The Imperial was their top line of saddles. They seemed to use 2 models, the full Quarter Horse bars and the Semi Quarter Horse bars on the saddle trees. And those models did fit a big range of horse bodies.
Can’t help with the numbers and do not know who owns Tex Tan these days.
At Tack Sales last winter, used Tex Tans went between $350 and $500. Sorry, wish I had better news on the pricing. You can always mark it higher and “bargin” to lower the price! But locally, buckstitching does not sell as well as plain saddles. Tex Tan had good leather and most saddles have worn well over the years, with any kind of care. This one looks nice, probably not too many miles on it because the suede seat is still fluffy, not shiny from rubbing. I always liked the Tex Tans better than Circle Y, because they actually sewed things down instead of nailing the bits to the tree. Saddle strings went thru all the layers to hold things together, not nailed on. Real rawhide covered trees sewn on the wood. Lift the flaps to note the good points to show buyers! Not sure if the Imperials were hand carved, but looking at it closely should tell you that.
Any amount really, or what it’s worth these days. It’s a beautiful saddle and stand, and unfortunately due to Covid, we had to put a hold on our Used Tack Sales. We have no room in the barn for it, and would like somebody who would enjoy it to have it. Whatever we can get for it is a bonus for us! 
The numbers seem a little strange.
Old Tex Tan Hereford saddles used to have a registration number, some times that one had letters also, then a dash and then date, a space and the last number was the model.
That would read saddle # 160V11-25/3/31 and no space and model number?
That would be a really old saddle!
Yeah, I thought the number was weird too! It’s definitely printed 160V, and then under it says 11-25331.So I was told it was a Jim Becker Special Saddle, and reached out to his son on Facebook who did confirm his dad endorsed these saddles back in the 60’s. I posted it on our local trail riders group, and somebody with knowledge of identifying saddles guesses it’s from 1965 based on the location of the number (left fender by the stirrup).
Tex Tan couldn’t help at all due to the plant closing, but only could confirm Jim Becker did make saddles with them.
It seems to be in excellent shape, whoever had it took very good care of it.
For anyone interested, Alex from Action Co was able to identify it. It’s a 1971 Tex Tan Jim Becker. 15.5" seat, 16 1/4" gullet, full QH bars, and bullhide covered wood tree!
Do you have the email for Alex? The one I found doesn’t work. Thanks
Tex Tan was purchased. They used to be owned by the Action Company, which went under for saddles anyways. I guess they only have real estate holdings now.
Anyways James Cox owns Tex Tan among other names once owned by Action Co.
Try the email above, not sure it will work though. Lots of records have been lost or not shared by previous owners.
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