Styles of Leather Carving & Stamping

[Chaa Duu Ba Its Iidan]

I am trying to get a good, general idea as to how to recognize styles of leather carving and stamping.  My main area of interest lies in the early, pre-1900 styles, and I am trying to understand the various styles, what they look like and their general chronological order of development.

I have come to understand that there are these styles:
Sheridan
California
Arizona

However, I am sure that there are other styles, such as those that developed in Mexico, Montana, Wyoming, Texas and other geographic areas of the country popular for their quality saddle and harness makers.

Can some of you long-time leather experts suggest some readings or web locations that specifically discuss the topic of "styles of leather carving" and perhaps show some pictorial examples of each?  If not, perhaps you could very briefly mention styles that you are aware of.

[ChuckBurrows]

You're trying to define something that did not really exist in the 19th Century in the way it does today - for instance the Sheridan style is way post the period and even the ubiquitous oak leaf style is post 1900. Aoout the only pre-1900 defined styles are in the matter of saddles and certain makers, but even that is not clear cut.

I know of no real/single resource to define the pre-1900 "style" (as much a matter of method as it is of style) and I've looked! Best way IMO is to make yourself up a database of dated images from the big picture books like Packing Iron and Cowboys and Trappings of the Old West, auction sites such as Butterfields and Greg Martin, on line searches of museum site, etc. - then collate them by date and area.

[JD Alan]

CDBII, you won't find a better authority than Chuck on this subject, though there are other really sharp guys on this forum who may weigh in. It was a great question, JD

[Chaa Duu Ba Its Iidan]

Chuck & JD,
I had a suspicion that what you said, Chuck, is the way it is.  I have been looking on the Internet, at the library and in print resources for this "styles" information fairly diligently for a couple weeks and there isn't much information that emerges.  The only major hits I've been able to generate is the Don King/Sheridan style (not the guy with the wierd hair obviously), which I understand developed in the 1950's and then there is some limited information on Sherman Loomis, who produced intrically tooled saddles in the mid-to-late 1800's.  Not much of his stuff remains to be seen, because evidently the very huge bulk of his work was ridden and worked into oblivion.  But I found a couple of Loomis examples and it is very pretty.  There are also several noted leather toolers from the  early 1900's, and mention of some saddle makers out of Visalia and Santa Barbara, California.  It was all very limited to start with, but after that, it runs out until the Sheridan style emerges in the 1950's, then remains static.  At least that's what my limited (so far) look at things says to me. 

I agree (because that's what I have begun to do) with the idea of collecting a design library and tagging the photographs with names, dates, geographical information, etc.

So, I though I was missing something, but it appears that leather working designs were never really looked at as categories of style.   That's interesting in itself.

[goodtime annie]

I think that the Arizona you are referring to may be better know as Porter, Maybe.

[cowboywc]

The biggest problem with tagging styles is they changed as toolers moved form saddle shop to saddle shop. They would take what they learned and add it to what they were doing in another shop. A style didn't last all that long.
WC

[Marshal Will Wingam]

This is an interesting topic, Chaa. Maybe this is a subject that will become a future book. If you do a bunch of reaearch on it, you may want to think about that. All definitive books start with someone's curiosity.

[Chaa Duu Ba Its Iidan]

The task would be to keep a limited focus on the work to be done while taking a broad enough view to recognize "crossover", all by geographical regions and recognizing and eliminating (or minimizing) the influence of superflous, non-"artistic" contributions (or, perhaps, including them as an "style" type).  It is an interesting idea and it would be probably five years in the making, if you worked hard at it.  Then you guys, some of you anyway, would be the ten or fifteen buyers of the book and the only ones to read it and look at the photographs.  I'd be falling asleep in some bookstore at a strip mall in Reseda, CA at my one and only book signing while the publisher would be trying to get me to return the advance they gave me, all the while frantically dialing around, begging libraries to buy the book.  Whoo HOO!! 

[Marshal Will Wingam]

LOL, pard!  If you only sell 10, I'll be 10% of that.