VICTORY SADDLE CO.

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Very little information was to be had about Victory Saddle Co.  Fortunately a snippet of their history has been made available to us by Peter Castles, a well known saddler in Toowoomba. He writes as follows:

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"Brisbane saddlers had two tool makers living in the city, a Mr Loof of Brook Street, South Brisbane, and Jess Mettam of Balmain Terrace, Red Hill. Both lived about five miles from the city centre. Jess was the best of them all, but this article is about Mr. Loof. He was a German blacksmith, completing a seven-year apprenticeship in Germany. I have no idea when he arrived in Australia, but do know that he died in 1946. His son Ted, was apprenticed at Butler Brothers as a Saddle maker, and would have cut his teeth on the Wieneke True to Labels of the era. Ted and his mate, George Hastie, were both apprenticed at Butlers during the depression of the 1930s. My old boss, Bert Wildermuth, was the last man put off in about 1932, and the first man put back on nine months later. He met Ted and George there and they became life long friends. Ted's dad made all his tools, and I am lucky to own some of them to this day. One of my favourites is the plough gauge he made Ted, all forged and filed in the little smithy he had at the back of his shed. All Ted's tools had his initials on them, so if you have T.L. on any of your saddler's tools you know where they came from."

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Ted, George and William Stokes went on, just after the war, to start their own saddlery, The Victory Saddle Co., near the Valley, in Brisbane. Why Victory? Well they reckoned we won the war! These three saddlers, plus a few apprentices, mainly wholesaled saddles to big establishments like Messrs Uhl & Sons, or to the self employed small town saddler, who could then place his maker's mark on the saddle and retail as his own.

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Victory closed their doors in approximately 1981, and we are lucky enough to have an assortment of saddles made by Victory taken from one of their catalogues for the benefit of the reader. Their machinery and patterns were sold to a saddlery in Murwillumbah, NSW.

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The museum is also fortunate to have secured a great example of a Victory Special Poley for display. It has the Victory maker's mark on the saddle, which means it was sold from the shop floor of Victory Saddle Co.

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