Advice on selling my saddle

[Finn]

Hi All

I was wondering if any of you could help/ advise me on the best place to sell my saddle as it needs to be sold within the next couple of weeks before my new one arrives.

So far I have it advertised on FB, Preloved, Gumtree, Ebay and all the horsey and saddle pages/ groups that are on FB.

Can anyone think of anywhere else?

 

[Abacus]

What is it? If it's on those and hasn't sold, is it overpriced?

 

[Finn]

What is it? If it's on those and hasn't sold, is it overpriced?

Hi Abacus,

Its a Barnsby GP, black leather and in immaculate condition, recently complelty reflocked. I paid over £1300 for it about 18 months ago and have it up for sale for £600. Do you think its over priced?

 

[Exploding Chestnuts]

I have the same problem.
Saddles may not fit your horse, and therefore it is a gamble, the cost of carriage is quite high if one has to return it.
I reckoned I have lost a fair amount of money on each saddle I have bought on Ebay, so it needs to be a fair price to begin with.
I have a good saddle for sale which would suit an arab, but no interest, though I have just sold the leathers off it [preloved]!
I am trying to sell it with leathers, girth and stirrups, but would split. I don't know what else I can do.

 

[Exploding Chestnuts]

Hi Abacus,

Its a Barnsby GP, black leather and in immaculate condition, recently complelty reflocked. I paid over £1300 for it about 18 months ago and have it up for sale for £600. Do you think its over priced?

Probably not overpriced, but there are not many people who buy expensive saddles, this is the problem.

 

[nix123]

Hi Finn,
Probably not what you want to hear but... i had a Barnsby saddle, perfect condition i paid well over £1000 for it it was 2.4yrs old and in the end i sold it for £300 as nobody was interested. I think people are just not buying. If your not in a rush to sell it maybe you should hang on to it for a while till the season picks up again.

 

[Abacus]

Have you tried getting a local saddle to try and sell it on for you? It can take a bit longer but they generally get a price as people are willing to pay a bit more to have one that has been properly fitted. I know our local saddler sells saddles for quite a bit more than the price you'd get on Ebay, it always amazes me that anyone buys them (but then I did, when I couldn't find anything else to fit).

Another thought is to send a photo to Saddles Direct, who will email back with a price they will pay for it.

It sounds a reasonable price to me although I don't know Barnsbys very well, sorry.

 

[Finn]

Thanks everyone for replying.

I suppose I will just have to keep whacking it on all these sites and updating it and hopefully it will sell eventually. I dont really want to lower the price anymore though as it was originally up for £750 but have now reduced it to £600.

 

[Equi]

Have you not got any saddlerys nearby that would sell it for you or buy it off you? If you say you paid the £1300 they will offer you a decent amount.

 

[Finn]

Thanks Abacus - I have just emailed Saddles Direct to see what they say as I wasnt aware there was places like that that did buy saddles off people wishing to sell

Equi - I do have a couple of saddlers nearby so maybe I could als oget in touch with thme and see what they say

Thankyou so much ofr the advice everyone xx

 

[Abacus]

Let us know how you get on - I'd be interested in what SD say. I fear it won't be quite market value, but at least it's a definite price.

 

[Finn]

Let us know how you get on - I'd be interested in what SD say. I fear it won't be quite market value, but at least it's a definite price.

Will keep you updated xxx

 

[MiJodsR2BlinkinTite]

IME its a buyer's market on E-bay at the moment: I put a leather 1982-manufactured but still very usable GP saddle on there recently and it didn't even attract one bid. I didn't put any reserve on it......... so if anyone had seen it they could have had a saddle for 99p!!! Laughable.

You can't even give stuff away on there at the moment. Its after Xmas, no-one's got any money, no-one is riding or doing anything (it seems); however give it a month or two and things might improve???

Perhaps just not the right time to sell a used saddle at the moment OP??

 

[wench]

You wont get £700 for it I will tell you that now.

You will be lucky to get £300 for it on ebay/preloved I'm afraid!

 

[springtime1331]

See, I'm looking for a relatively flat treed saddle for my new youngster and am happy to have a fairly old one. Can't find anything I'm after (Farrington, ideal etc) for less than £300. Don't want to spend too much as I know she'll be out of it in 6 months.

 

[applecart14]

Hi Abacus,

Its a Barnsby GP, black leather and in immaculate condition, recently complelty reflocked. I paid over £1300 for it about 18 months ago and have it up for sale for £600. Do you think its over priced?

I have a Barnsby for sale on Preloved and Gumtree. Its an Itree and less than 12 months old. It retails for £2K and I am selling it for £1300 and not a single reply.

The MD of Barnsby said saddle are not selling at the moment, he is going to try and ask his marketing people if they will sell my saddle for me as I won it from them as a prize and although clearly tailored to fit my horse (was made to measure) it doesn't fit him.

 

[Finn]

Hi

Just to update you all, Saddles Direct offered me £400, thats what would be left once they had taken their commision out of it

xxx

 

[Abacus]

Oh dear... not as much as you hoped. Sorry to hear that.

 

[Finn]

No.... unfortuantly not but it might have to be a last resort if I cant manage to sell it privately as I need it sold before my new one arrives in a couple of weeks.

 

[FairyLights]

Hi Finn,
Probably not what you want to hear but... i had a Barnsby saddle, perfect condition i paid well over £1000 for it it was 2.4yrs old and in the end i sold it for £300 as nobody was interested. I think people are just not buying. If your not in a rush to sell it maybe you should hang on to it for a while till the season picks up again.

I agree there are thousands of second hand saddles about and even newish excellent condition ones arnt selling well. I'd advertise for £450 and be prepared to drop to as low as £300.

 

[mjcssjw2]

I am in the same boat I have an ideal finesse show saddle in lovely condition, no on is interested!

 

[Fransurrey]

I'm also struggling to sell a saddle (T4 pony club), despite them having a good rep and apparently I'm asking a very fair price (250) for a little used saddle.
How does the Saddlers Direct thing work? Do you send your saddle to them and they sell on your behalf, or do you get the money upfront?

 

[Sheep]

The difficulty is I think that things like saddles have more worth to the seller than their commercial value. I have a lovely Barnsby GP at home that is not being used at the moment, and while I could sell it easily for maybe £4-500, it is worth considerably more than that to me - if I sold it, I don't think I could get as good a saddle again (and doubt I could afford it). Since it is a fairly standard medium-wide 17" GP saddle, I decided to hold on to it, since it is likely to be of use again in the future.

Applecart, your saddle may prove difficult to sell if it was made to measure - I know it didn't fit your horse in the end anyway, but that may put a lot of buyers off - especially given the fairly high (in my opinion) asking price for a second hand saddle. I know you're stuck in a difficult situation so I hope it is resolved soon!

 

[FireFly29]

I'm trying to sell a saddle too at the moment, although I'm not in a hurry.
As someone else said a lot of people are a bit short of money at the moment as its after Christmas and January is a long month!
Hopefully they'll be people looking mores seriously after payday!

 

[Annie B.]

Hi Finn, have you put 3 good photo's on preloved as an attention grabber and offered more by email. I purchased a Albion K2 two years ago of preloved and it was in fantastic condition £1300 new and I gave £450, just sold same saddle on preloved last week for £650 no quibble. Make sure the back ground to photos is good, and saddle is immaculate I went to town with the cotton buds and tweezers. Saddles direct also offer to advertise your saddle on their site I think it was £15 a month so you don't have to sell it to them. Good luck.

 

[chestnut cob]

I have always been able to sell synthetic saddles easily (sold a couple of Wintecs and a Thorowgood) - always gone within a couple of days of advertising - but found it harder to sell more expensive leather saddles. Took me a while to sell my Harry Dabbs DR saddle and my Ideal Jessica, but I did get the asking price for both eventually. Have recently sold a Jeffries jumping saddle but it was advertised for about 3 months before I finally managed to sell it. I had ads on Horsemart and Saddles Direct, but eventually it went through Preloved, which is how I've sold all of the others. I got about £50 less that I really wanted for the saddle but had to accept it because I had a new one to pay for! TBH if you desperately need to get rid of it then I think you have to drop the price. I figure that getting less for it than you'd like (without being silly about it) is still better than getting nothing at all.

 

[puss]

See im looking for a saddle and want to buy now Im looking mw black or brown gp in good nick prefer kent and masters or bates but want to pay up to 450.00. cheeky i know but thats all i got

 

[Finn]

Ohh wow! So many replies, thanks guys.

I have already dropped the price down from £750 down to £600 and am thinking on dropping it even further as whilst I really dont,have to get rid of it urgently it would be easier if I did sell it before my new one arrives in a couple of weeks.

I have put 4/5 really decent pics of it on all the sites and you can clearly see from the photos that its in immaculate condition but I suppose its like other people have already stated that it is January and people dont have the spare cash for things like a new saddle .

Oh well, I will just have to keep trying.

 

[chestnut cob]

It isn't that old Finn so TBH unless it has already been advertised for months, I would stick with it at that price. Keep renewing your Preloved ads - change the wording and headline as this bumps it back to the top I think. I had loads of really cheeky people emailing me. I advertised mine for £500 and two people asked if I would take £200 AND deliver it to the other side of the country. I ended up selling mine for £450, which was pretty good considering what I paid for it the year before.

 

[picasso]

I am in the same boat I have an ideal finesse show saddle in lovely condition, no on is interested!

hi I will be really honest and say I have looked at the advert for your saddle several times. It is a lovely saddle. However, I personally cannot afford to spend £600 on a saddle to find it then doesnt fit my horse and I have to resell it. Therefore I've had to pass and look at saddlery shops who will give me a 7 day trial so i can get the saddler to have a look at it and see if he can adjust etc. It is unlikely I'll just be able to buy a saddle 'off the peg' which I can just plonk on the horse and go and many show saddles have gel panels and things which means they can't be adjusted. Its a lot of money to risk. I suspect there may be others who feel like me. You may be better selling through saddles direct etc as then people can trial them. I know I would (and have done in past)