OK, all you oldtime cowpokes,

jnyork · Post by **jnyork** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 4:28 pm

In movies, in TV documentaries and in oldtime photos, the cowboys are wearing big ol' leather cuffs on their forearms. Exactly what is the purpose of those cuffs ?

airedaleman · Post by **airedaleman** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 4:44 pm

Believe they were meant to protect the wrists when roping cattle. Suspect they became more decorative than utilitarian, though. Can any of you serious cowboys confirm?

Grizzly Adams · Post by **Grizzly Adams** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 4:59 pm

I read somewhere that they were meant to protect the cuff of the shirt and keep it from getting snagged on bard wire or other wise tangled. Old time shirts where cut large and generous by today's standards.

airedaleman · Post by **airedaleman** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 5:10 pm

Cowboy? Work with barbed wire?

20cows · Post by **20cows** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 5:18 pm

Cowboy? Work with barbed wire?

Yep, it's a small place and most days out there it's just me. I'm only "part time" myself. Barbed wire keeps the critters where they belong.

Usually.

Meeteetse · Post by **Meeteetse** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 5:26 pm

Yup, kept the sleeves from getting ruined when roping and other work like fencing. If you have ever roped anything, one of the tricks is to wrap the rope around your wrist for added leverage rather than just in your hands. It also protects when fencing, however today they are more for show.

They sort of acted like the sleeve garters bankers and others used to keep their sleeves pulled up. As someone else said, shirts were cut with a lot of extra room in the sleeves.

JerryB · Post by **JerryB** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 5:33 pm

None of my cowboying was open range so ther was lots of barb wire to contend with that's why a pair of fenceing pliers stayed in the saddle bags along with a few nails and staples. As far as the "cuffs" went they were actually before my time, but I reckon they were worn to keep the baggy shirt sleeves from catching on the saddle horn or wire or what ever.They did get to be really ornamental though.

gon2shoot · Post by **gon2shoot** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 5:35 pm

Worn (with gloves) to prevent ropeburn. In the pre-nylon rope days you could get a lot of stickers and some rather large fibers off grass ropes.
Also helped to keep from getting the large cuff from getting caught up in the rope and following Bossi across the pasture at a high rate of speed,.....and they looked cool

My granddad kept two pair, one to work in and one shined up pair to wear to town.

airedaleman · Post by **airedaleman** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 5:59 pm

20cows wrote:
Cowboy? Work with barbed wire?
Yep, it's a small place and most days out there it's just me. I'm only "part time" myself. Barbed wire keeps the critters where they belong.

Usually.

Understood. Kind of grew up next to a dairy farm in upstate New York.
I was thinking of the old-timey cowhands and their horror of bob-wire fences

Terry Murbach · Post by **Terry Murbach** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 6:22 pm

BE SURE AND LOOK IN " SIXGUNS BY KEITH " FOR PICTURES OF A REAL OLD WEST GUNFIGHTER AND HIS USE OF WRIST CUFFS.
GOD REST YOUR SOUL JOHN NEWMAN WHERE EVER YOU ARE.

bobbyjack · Post by **bobbyjack** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 3:02 am

And some of us new cowboys use them,we take the lawn mowers handles off the mowers ,and put a two foot piece of 1/2 galvanised pipe into the holes of a spool of wire and use it to run fence wire!

The cuff design is good on some gloves,helps when you are actually handling wire!

That cuff will help when handeling Wire and rope!

Bob

ornery · Post by **ornery** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 10:53 pm

Yup ....have 2 pair and actually do use them on occasion....roping, fencing, shirtsleeves, help a little while shoeing. All kind of reasons. Most important, just like my spurs, I like wearin' em'

Griff · Post by **Griff** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 11:37 pm

They're for ropin'? Are ye sure? Not from horseback in my trainin' manual! I ain't ever wrapped a rope aroun' my wrist when there's a perfectly good horn on the office chair, custom made fer such!

Now, fer ground work with both bovine & bronc, that's a differnt story.

rangerider7 · Post by **rangerider7** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 12:23 am

The foreman on a ranch I worked on as a teenager told me they were first used to drive a wagon team. The teamster would wrap the reins around his wrist and forearms to control a hard driving team. Later he said when barbwire came out a lot of cowboys started to use them for protection. They were also used to keep the shirt sleeves up and protected as well as garters. Sometimes both were used. Cowboys weren't against using belt and suspenders together to hold up there pants ether. If there was any roping to be done on foot you had better find a stump or tree to wrap that rope around or you would be drug through the cactus and Mesquite in Texas. Most of the cowboys I saw working with horses or cattle in the corral would hold the rope in the left hand on their side with the rope behind their back and hold the rest of the rope in the right hand on their side. If there was a stubbing stump or pole that's what they used. Here is Ewrin E Smith wearing a pair.

Griff · Post by **Griff** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:37 am

rangerider7 wrote:The foreman on a ranch I worked on as a teenager told me they were first used to drive a wagon team. The teamster would wrap the reins around his wrist and forearms to control a hard driving team. ...If there was any roping to be done on foot you had better find a stump or tree to wrap that rope around or you would be drug through the cactus and Mesquite in Texas. Most of the cowboys I saw working with horses or cattle in the corral would hold the rope in the left hand on their side with the rope behind their back and hold the rest of the rope in the right hand on their side. If there was a stubbing stump or pole that's what they used. Here is Ewrin E Smith wearing a pair.

I'd never heard that about drivin'. When I was taught to drive, I was taught on a 4-up, the reins between the fingers, and doubled up in the fist... gloves almost were mandatory. In CA, we just had the cactus!

But, you're absolutely right about that snubbin' post! But, the old vaquero that taught me fencin' said, "there isn't anything that will protect you from barbed wire except knowin' where it's all at! He was a stickler about keeping the bare minimum as a working distance, you'd better keep it on the roll for as long as you could.

rangerider7 · Post by **rangerider7** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 6:04 am

Griff, I was told the same about the reins between the fingers and double up in the fist, but I do remember seeing him and others do a quick wrap to shorten the reins or make a hard turn on a rough team. I was seldom ask to drive a wagon, I stayed on an old dodge truck with a long gear shift most of the time. If I got to ride a horse it was a great day.

Griff · Post by **Griff** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 10:52 am

rangerider7 wrote:Griff, I was told the same about the reins between the fingers and double up in the fist, but I do remember seeing him and others do a quick wrap to shorten the reins or make a hard turn on a rough team. I was seldom ask to drive a wagon, I stayed on an old dodge truck with a long gear shift most of the time. If I got to ride a horse it was a great day.

Seems like we worked for the "same" guy! 'Cept in my case it was an old Wlly's Jeep that'd seen the ENTIRE WWII European theater, possibly all of the North African campaign and a post hole digger!

OJ · Post by OJ » Mon Mar 17, 2008 11:10 am

airedaleman wrote:Cowboy? Work with barbed wire?

Yep - every spring before branding time and after moving cattle to summer range, we "fixed fence".

However, we wore gloves and no cuffs - it was depression days in the 1930s and we felt lucky to afford gloves -

I was nearly 16 before I thought about doing anything with my life than be what I'd always been - a cowboy - had two years in the Nebraska School of Agriculture by then. Never saw any of our cowboys wearing cuffs on wrists - though we did wear long sleeved shirts - even when temps were over 100 degrees in summer putting up hay - protection from sunburn.

Dunno about movies - we had to drive a couple of hours to any movie house - plus it cost 15 cents to get in and gas was mostly around 20 cents per gallon - had to spend money wisely, y'know.

SJPrice · Post by **SJPrice** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 2:49 pm

if you wrap anything, reins, ropes etc. around any part of your body and attach the other end to a horse or cattle, please update your will first and leave me your sixgun, levergun and saddle.

OJ · Post by OJ » Mon Mar 17, 2008 4:27 pm

SJPrice wrote:if you wrap anything, reins, ropes etc. around any part of your body and attach the other end to a horse or cattle, please update your will first and leave me your sixgun, levergun and saddle.

Yep - couldn't agree more. I've roped a lot of "critters" - mostly calves but some were really sizable short yearlings - and some horses but, I never even bought into the "double half hitch" of the rope around the saddle horn many other guys used. I wrapped the rope around the saddle horn twice so if everything went downhill, I could get free instantly. The thought of wrapping a rope or even reins around any part of my body still gives me chills.

Now, the day when I was 10 or 12 and a friend and I used the oxen yoke his grandfather made for him to hook up a couple of "short yearling" steers (about 6003 - 700# each) to a wagon and took a ride. We hadn't considered the ox team were trained to go, stop, and gee or haw (turn right or left - for tenderfeet). After going through a small lake and a couple of fences, we stopped - well - in all honesty, we stopped because the rear wheels of the wagon couldn't keep up with us and had departed our company. Naturally, there was "payday" for us but, I always thought our dads were having a hard time keeping a straight face as they explained to us the errors of our ways.

God looks after fools, drunks, and young cowboys.

Dastook · Post by **Dastook** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 4:47 pm

SJPrice wrote:if you wrap anything, reins, ropes etc. around any part of your body and attach the other end to a horse or cattle, please update your will first and leave me your sixgun, levergun and saddle.

I heard that. I did that when I was about 16 teaching a yearling Jersey bull to leed. Pulled me around the pasture and broke both colar bones and my wrist.

Bruce Scott · Post by **Bruce Scott** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 5:07 pm

I'm sure I've read somewhere that the idea came from cavalry gauntlets that came well up past the wrist.

Didn't a another version - cloth or celluloid - also come with those eye shades that old time clerks wore?

rafter-7 · Post by **rafter-7** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 5:46 pm

When i go fencing on a warm day I use my welding gloves it makes a HUGE difference at the end of the day!

rafter-7

Bruce Scott · Post by **Bruce Scott** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 6:55 pm

Anyone remember these?

Marlin .35 · Post by **Marlin .35** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 8:06 pm

Now ya all know you are spoofing. They were worn mainly to keep the cuff of the long shirts clear of the gun hand when they faced each other in the streets!!!! Art