US Cavalry in Belgium WWI?

Pat Holscher
Society Member
Posts: 7553
Joined: Thu Nov 30, 2000 6:51 pm
Last Name: Holscher

Rick Throckmorton wrote: On an aside, when these saddles started to be converted, the arsenals (and probably the saddlers in the field who were doing conversions) used up old parts on hand first during the conversions. I've got a second pattern saddle with iron halter squares utilized from old stock, and also have a such a saddle with the bronze/brass squares, which is typically seen. The fun part is that I also have a conversion saddle that has two iron squares, and two bronze squares! Talk about using up old stock.
I had a M1904 at one time that had iron squares. The saddle was really a mess in general, and when the prior owner went to ship it to me it ended up getting caught in a flood of a Post Office in, of all places, New Mexico, so the saddle couldn't be used. I traded to a saddle maker in partial payment for a M1904 he'd just rebuilt as he wanted the tree, but I kept the iron squares.

I always assumed that some later post Army user had swapped out the squares for some reason and had never considered the possibility that the saddle had originally been that way. Interesting to realize that this isn't uncommon.
Locked