What is the difference between Billy Cook saddles made in OK and the ones made in TX?

There is a lot of confusion on this topic. Here is it in a nutshell. Billy Cook originally made good handmade saddles in TX up until the early 1980's. He ran into financial and legal problems and sold out to Longhorn. After wards, he relocated to OK where his current shop is. The LH BC saddles will not have his signature logo on them. Nor will they say "Billy Cook Maker". If you have an original BC, then that's a nice saddle. Check under the left jockey for a serial #. It will be up high under the bars of the tree. Only the real BC will have them. The Long Horn BC don't have a #. Hope that helps.

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RE:

What is the difference between Billy Cook saddles made in OK and the ones made in TX?

Thanks for any insight.

Billy Cook opened shop in Greenville, Tx. many yrs. ago after serving a time in the military where he had met Bill Potts. After a time they got together because Billy had the shop and Bill had the money. It became Billy Cook Saddlery/Potts Longhorn. The Billy Cook saddles were the upper line saddles, and Longhorn were the lower line. The Billy Cook saddles had better trees, Herman Oak leather, beveled stainless dees, hand tooling, and hand sewed rigs to skirts. Longhorn were lesser priced trees, regular stainless hardware, synthetic wool, and machine sewed rigs to skirts.

Tooling patterns were often pressed by a huge press, which is what made a lot of those saddles really hard and stiff. The people that worked there were proud of their work and proud to work there and made one of the best production saddles of that day. Jay Lynn Gore was the head tooler there for many years. The tooling look of Billy Cook saddles was largely the work of Jay Lynn.

Billy was the manager of this operation for many years, designing all the saddles, making patterns, and then having a complete set of dies made for every new design. Billy believes in dies.

Billy later started another shop in downtown Greenville making harness. It was called Billy Cook Harness. Eventually he started making saddles there too. He would work at Longhorn in the morning and go to the harness shop in the afternoon.

Billy Cook Saddlery/Potts Longhorn had coorporate offices in Dallas. In the late 80's Bill Potts passed away. The Co. continued to be run from Dallas. The co. had tons of orders but there was corporate embezzlement in Dallas and the co. went chapter 11, and then chapter 7. Everybody wanted to buy it and it went up for auction. Don Motsenbokker bought it. (I dont know if I spelled that right) Don was originally a bookkeeper for the Shoelkopf family. This was the family that used to make Jumbo Saddles. Don knew the saddle buisness and already owned Action, Tex Tan, Simco,which is in Chattanooga, Saddlesmith, and now Billy Cook Saddlery. He then advertised as the largest saddle co. in the world, which he probably was. That is how Simco and Longhorn came to be associated. Simco is still in Chattanooga, Longhorn is still in Greenville, Tx.

They did combine the coorporate offices in Chattanooga and call it Simco/Longhorn.

Billy Cook did not sell his name, he just couldn't keep it. When the Co went bankrupt everything went up with it, including the name, which had international recognition, Which is what made it valuable. He did keep building saddles at Billy Cook Harness until the I.R.S. shut him down for not paying his taxes, or not doing witholdings correctly for a number of years which amounted to a ton of money, which put him out of buisness in Greenville.

Sulphur, O.K., had one of those grant type situations to get new buisnesses in their town and Billy got one. That is why he has his buisness there while still having his home in Greenville, Tx.

No one who works at the Greenville plant is an original employee, but all the dies and patterns were done by Billy Cook. When those companies fuse like that they can buy literally truckloads, traincar loads of leather, synthetic fleece, glues, threads, etc. everything and distribute them to their various plants, also much cheaper than any small shop can do. This is one reason why a custom shop can't compete with a production shop, and shouldn't even try.

The bottom line is Ron, if you have a Billy Cook saddle then it was made in Greenville, Tx. Billy Cook saddles have never been made in Mexico, or in Tn. Saddles labeled genuine Billy Cook saddles are made in Sulphur, O.K. where Billy wants it to be clear that that is where he is, the real Billy Cook. If you have a Greenville, Tx. Billy Cook saddle and you like it, just enjoy it.

difference billy cook saddles tx

honestly, i dont really see a difference in the two, having owned billy cook saddles from OK and TX. the only thing i find different is the shipping price. hope this helps :)

I own 2 billy cooks, and they come with a little pamphlet that says "will the real billy cook please stand up" it says that they are made in sulphur, OK (the saddle horn also says sulphur, OK on it) however, in the pamplet there isn't any mention of TX. I assume then that the ones made in OK are the "correct" billy cooks

I have an unusual Billy Cook. It is truly Billy Cook, stamped on leather flap and on seat. The floral pattern all over is the same throughout saddle and pommel, BUT is also stamped one time "Longhorn" under left fender with a serial #, any opinions on that?? Is this a Billy Cook/Longhorn??

Thanks for any help!!