The original pair of Brass Raking Spurs featured here are, to the trained eye, easily recognized as Confederate raking spurs. The raking style spur (rowels sideways) is a distinctly Confederate military design. It allowed the rider to roll the rowels through the horses’ flanks rather than just give him a poke. I have often read of battlefield courier’s horses’ flanks being bloodied and torn by the rider’s spurs, and though the writer never mentioned the type of spur that did the damage, I think it very likely that it was done by severe application of the raking spur.

This particular pair of spurs is one of the rarest of all Confederate spurs; so rare in fact, that to my knowledge, another matched pair does not exist. The only published examples are of excavated specimens. The existence of this non excavated pair allows us to see that the previously held opinion that the CS was cast into the spur is incorrect, the letters are actually stamped in, but this could not be discerned when examining excavated examples. In hindsight, we should have recognized that the varying spacing gave proof that the CS was not cast into the mold.

This pair of spurs uses two, 1861, New Orleans mint quarters as rowels. These did not come from the manufacturer this way; perhaps the owner changed them out to go easy on his steed. Regardless of why, it is apparent that they have been this way for a long, long time. The leather keepers are original.

A museum inventory number is affixed to the spurs; this number is from the Lewis Leigh, Jr. Collection. As this is one of the most important collections of the 20^th century, this number should not be removed.

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