Pancho Villa silver saddle headed to auction in January

Pancho Villa – infamous renegade, Robin Hood, revolutionary and hero of the Mexican people – was assassinated almost 100 years ago, at the age of 45. His adventurous life has been celebrated numerous times on the silver screen, in museums and institutions around the world, and his name appears on street signs and plazas throughout the Americas. What remains today of this complex and mysterious man are facts, folklore and his final magnificent silver threaded saddle. That saddle will now appear on the world stage when it is auctioned on Jan. 28, 2012 in High Noon’s Western Americana auction in Mesa, Arizona. It is expected to make $150,000 to $250,000. The provenance of this saddle matches the richness of Villa’s life. It was given by Villa’s widow and only legal wife (reportedly he had eight marriages) to famed Hollywood director Howard Hawks during the filming of Viva Villa. Mrs. Villa felt the film extolled the merits of the Mexican Revolution and Villa as she knew him. For the past 20 years, Villa’s saddle has been on display in Texas, at the Witte Museum in San Antonio and the South Texas History Museum in Edinburg. In excellent condition, the saddle is smothered in silver-wrapped threads and boldly-domed silver conchos. Made and marked by expert craftsmen, it has Francisco (nickname: Pancho) Villa’s initials in high relief on the stirrups. Thematically, it has a 3-dimensional silver snakehead and a carved diablo in the leather under the saddlebags. Joseph Sherwood of High Noon remarked, “This is the trifecta for saddles – beautiful, in great condition and historically significant.”...more