norwegian or swedish horse collar

[Anonymous]

Has anyone figured out where to get a scandinavian style horse collar and hames without it costing an arm and a leg? I found this site in Germany that has them for 80 euros, but can’t figure out how to order from them because the shipping info is in German.

http://www.militaerbestaende.de/Reenactment-Sammlerware/Sonstige-Sammlerware/Norweg-Armee-Pferdekummet-gebraucht::528.html?XTCsid=adtkzegc

There is also an army surplus wholesaler in Massachusetts I think that has some, but they don’t sell to retail.

I’d love to try them out because I think that although they probably aren’t good for hard pulling, they would be great for training a new team that is constantly growing and needs a collar that can be adjusted to fit. Also, if you have lots of horses of different sizes.

[Jim Ostergard]

I have one made by the Amish down in Pennsylvania but I don’t know who it is. I will try and find out. My feeling is that each collar fits a pretty specific size horse. I am sure Simon Lenihan can give much more information. As for heavy pulling he knows about that as that is what he does. My collar/hames (bogtre in Norwegian?) is on the light side but for starting out works well. I am going to make a pad for it which should extend its ability. When rigged to clip onto the rest of the harness it make hooking up pretty easy.

[Anonymous]

I found a Swedish army surplus collar at this wholesaler at http://www.marspec.net/surplus/product.asp?s_id=0&pf_id=PAAAAADKENDEKHPN

They are in Massachusetts, but they don’t sell retail. Price is just $75. I have asked them if they have a retail customer who has them in stock and am waiting for a reply.

[grey]

That’s pretty neat. I don’t know if I’d ever have cause to use it, but I’d love to have one of those in my collection of harness curiosities.

[Jim Ostergard]

Here is Atticus in his rig. Were putting them together for the first time here and just trying to get all the rigging fitted. But it is a pretty good shot of his Norwegian style harness

[CharlyBonifaz]

if lacking alternatives and you want to take up the German hp on this deal, let me know and I will try to be helpful with the translation of the smallprint or whatever you want to know.

[simon lenihan]

These are very light weight collars and only suitable for training, check out http://www.blocket.se and also type in loksele till salu [ harness for sale ] you will get a good secondhand harness for approx $600 to $700. simon

[Anonymous]

Thanks for all the helpful replies. I have a homemade Scandinavian style harness for my pony team, but I couldn’t figure out how to make the hames and collar. It would be easier if I had the real thing to copy.

I am going to wait a few days to see if I can make a deal with the American army surplus place. I don’t think I will use it for real hard pulling, just early training for my new fjord team and maybe light vehicles.

[Anonymous]

That’s the neat thing about the Scandinavian harness — you can convert it to work with a western style tongue pretty easily just like in the picture.

[Anonymous]

I am working on the same thing, could you post pics and a description of your home made harness?

thanks
Jared

[Anonymous]

Here’s a pic that I had handy on my desktop. I’ll post a better pic sans ponies later. The leather is bison that chrome tanned in a barrel and then dyed with oak bark. The hardware is all handforged and arc welded but as you can see, I just used normal collars and hames.

[Anonymous]

I finally called marspec in Massachusetts and Patrick said that the collars were hard to sell at their surplus shop, can you believe it! Anyway, he checked the warehouse and they are sold out. But I told him that if he gets some more in to drop me a line because there might be a market for a dozen pairs at least on DAP.

[Jim Ostergard]

Nice job of the harness! Check out Simon’s website Celtichorselogging.com for some pictures of large drafts hauling nice loads with the Scandinavian harness. The hames/collar (bogtre) is heavier than mine for sure! I think one of the advantages of this rig in the day was a person could make them on the farm.

[Anonymous]

Other advantages I can see are the fact you can tighten the fit along the sides a bit, which is the main contact point to avoid rubbing. I was interested to see that the German, Swedish and Norwegian armies used the collars back in the day. It makes sense: if you’re on a gruelling campaign and the horses are getting thin, you can adjust the fit very simply. And if one of the horses dies, finding a collar that fits its replacement would be fairly easy.

For those that are looking to try out the collars, I think finding an army surplus supply of them might be the way to go. I’m going to try the militarbaestand website next to see if they ship to North America, and at what cost.

[Jim Ostergard]

Collars like mine I think can still be got custom order from an Amish harness shop in Penn. I will check into it and see if they still will make them and what they would cost.

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