The pic you see before you is considered a test. Lemme explain... -my father owns a fishing/shoe repair shop and I'm watching over it this weekend -a man comes in with an intense look in his eyes (he meant business) -we shake hands as he gives a greeting in some slavic language -he takes off his belt and presents it before me (pic related) -he then asks what is this belt made from and what's the history behind it -"I'm not the cobbler, but he'll be in on monday" -he's impressed my dad wud open the shop on labour day -he sez if my dad can answer this, he'll give all his contacts (I'm assuming he'ss a retired leatherman) -AND however much cash necessary from his $10mil bank account -he takes off, saying he'll see my dad monday morning
I dun wanna go so far as to call him some crazy kook. He cud just be an eccentric philanthropist with no successor to look after his legacy. Sure, $10mil is a bit out there, but inheriting another biz wud save our asses (we're not doing too well).
tl;dr: if my dad and I can identify the material and history of this belt, our business might get the boost we sorely need.
Wut can be told from this one pic alone? Wut are some general identifiers of how leather has been treated over time? For fuk sake, is it made of human skin or somethin?
Michael Moore
You might want to look into specific forums for this sort of thing - I doubt there's a thriving demographic of leather experts on fa
Charles Walker
go to super future. They might have a better answer or just go to a forum dedicated to leather products
David Morgan
We're going to need more close up pics and pics in better lighting for anyone to be of use
Lucas Bailey
I thought your topic said "Calling Veeky Forums feather experts!" and the thumbnail was a pic of two feathers
Since you want leather experts rather than feather experts, I don't have any useful input
Jayden Myers
If i had to guess id say lizard or stingray maybe for the top one and maybe some sort of snake for the bottom as you can see it doesn't go all the way across so might be from the top and bottom of the snake, Might be a crocodile or alligator but imagine they would have enough material to cover the top side consistently. what did he mean by history are you meant to identify where it came from who made it or what ?
Jaxson Morris
Quite obviously gator on top and maybe Morocco leather on the other side? Or a very fine grain snakeskin. It does kinda look like pearly stingray leather from the picture but obviously a stingray won't be long enough for a whole belt. Picture quality is too muddy to say anything specific other than the upper being gator.
Do you have more pictures?
Blake Williams
Actually, those are the two ends of the belt. Is it normal to include a mixture of different leathers?
>what did he mean by history I'm guessing he meant what kind of work it went through over the years, ie. fixings, alterations, etc.
>more pics? Nope (silly, stupid me...). I guess it could be stingray tho, since that texture of leather only consists of half the belt. But what are the qualities to stingray/gator/snake?
Thx for all the help so far Veeky Forumsshionistas
Noah Nelson
Cow leather stamped to look like alligator leather And the stitching is shit so it's not even made in China
Tyler Martin
So those are both the upper sides of the belt and it's sewn together in half? Then it might be stingray. Stingray is quite hard with little nobby pearls. Has a bit of a plasticky feel to it. I doubt it's cowhide with gator embossing, the scales look too real for that. Not sure what the other guy means by shit stitiching, just looks like an old ass belt.
Anyway nothing more we can tell you without other pictures so say goodbye to the money
And yes, belts are usually two leathers, unless it's a belt made from one thick piece of belt hide
Joseph Barnes
Just because it's old doesn't mean the stitches shouldn't be even
Nathan Gonzalez
90% sure it's ostrich or emu foot, pic related.
Stingray hide is made up of literal rocks, gators, crocs and lizards have more square scales.
Nathaniel Barnes
99.999 percent sure it's stamped cow leather
Dominic Roberts
x2
Jonathan Price
Where are they uneven? In th parts that are used the most and the whole material is skewed?
What makes you think that? There is nothing that would indicate it being stamped cow
Jackson Miller
Also, it's wouldn't exactly be a test of any kind if it was something as mundane as gator, cow or lizard. When hearing of ostrich leather, people usually think of the skin from the body with these pimply follicles and whatnot, not the foot.
The front side has obvious 3d big bird interlocking 'scales'. You can stamp gator scales but not this.
Jonathan Cruz
Nobody in their right mind would pay six thousand dollars for a belt then wear it to hell and back And there's no wear in the part of the belt with uneven stitching, it was simply made with poor qc, probably on a sewing machine that can't handle such tough fabric Whatever that guy thinks he has, he's wrong
Jose Anderson
Pic related
Julian Cruz
Still going with ostrich leg, I mean just look at this.
Sewing machines don't make stitches with uneven length. Angle maybe, when you don't know what you're doing, but not length. The stitching is most likely done by hand, and if the guy is indeed an old leatherworker, this could be the first serious piece he had made for himself when he was still learning. The patina makes it look really really old.
Jayden Cox
>6000 For what? A gator belt? (Which might be ostrich after all) Lmao What makes you think this belt is worth 6000? (And why wouldn't he wear it to hell and back if he can afford shelling out that much for a belt)
It's 99.999% not stamped cow And your bad stitching talk is bullshit You can even see how those four squiggly stitches are right at the edge of the scale or inbetween, needle slipped. Doesn't matter what machine you use, won't make the needle more sturdy
Angel Reed
Its like arguing with a conspiracy theorist No amount of logic will make you accept reality And you're wrong. Your sewing machine might not but leather is heavy fabric, even when it's faux ostrich leather (see what I did there) and it won't always feed straight, especially if you aren't using a well maintained industrial sewing machine Also, the untrained (see: Slavic or Bangladeshi) eye might not know that luxury goods are expected to meet unreal/virtually unattainable quality standards, straight stitching being a no brainer
Noah Lewis
>it's exotic leather so it must be luxury goods Git gud
Henry Anderson
OP won't even provide a picture of the tag on the underside of the belt Nobody can answer all questions about a product with one image
Joseph Sanchez
It's like arguing with a stupid bitch. The untrained (see: stupid bitch) eye might not know that ostrich leather is cheap as shit and nowhere near croc/gator levels, so it doesn't imply the belt is a luxury item at all. You can get it from literally any tannery.
If it's handmade / bespoke from a dude's workshop it likely won't have any tags.
Jace Williams
This situation sounds like a fucking fairly tale. Op are you a poor English boy whose mother died giving you birth only to be replaced by an abusive step mother?
Cooper Murphy
>poor English boy Does he or does he not need our sympathy?
Owen Robinson
Ostrich leg, handmade with a sewing awl.
Jayden Morgan
>handmade with a sewing awl doubtful
also thanks for summing up the discussion in the last posts of this thread and presenting it as your own finding
Nathan Johnson
no, i was simply hammering it in. I realized it was ostrich right away, but more people agreeing only makes it clearer. The image I chose displays both the front and black texture of the leg, making it even clearer.
The reason you know its handmade, is the uneven sewing, also, it's not exactly a material you want to work with a machine, it's very fine.
but hey..who knows.. i could be wrong and this is a dinosaur.
Caleb Sullivan
>implying any leather worker with a hint of self respect would use one of those shitty sewing awls >implying those are common anywhere apart from tandy catalogs
If he used an awl and needle for this he would have done it with a sword awl and two needles using the saddle stitch. But no one's gonna do a whole belt with a sword awl. If anything he might have used a chisel set to punch a few holes at a time, wouldn't explain the unevenness of the stitches on one part of the belt though. The fine grain obviously has very even stitching. If he can manage to do such perfectly even spaced and angled stitches for the whole length of the fine grain, why fuck up the part with the big scales (or whatever that shit is called on an ostrich's leg). The thread used on the belt is tex 100 or 200. You use a 110-120 needle for that. They're bendy and if you don't turn the wheel by hand or go really slow and simply start sewing they will slip over those big cracks and go for the nearest loose part they can penetrate. have you ever worked with leather and sewing machines? why would ostrich be "too fine" to use a sewing machine on it. complete nonsense.
Camden Taylor
Veeky Forumsshionistas, thank you all. But a big shout out to for solving this mystery.
So far then I got that -it's ostrich leather -it's old judging by its patina -we're up in the air on the stitching (leaning more on handmade)
There were no tags or embossings on the underside, so it prolly wuz tailor made (?).
Oh my, how on earth did you correctly guess this. Wut I also failed to mention wuz how the shop came alive as soon as this 'magical' man stepped into shop, something ala youtu.be/0p_1QSUsbsM
But srsly, we've heard of strange stories b4 where mysterious benefactors come and lift up people's lives, haven't we?
Isaac Hill
you can get one at Walmart user. speedy stitcher awl.
you could be right though.
Grayson Rodriguez
or maybe they used a spacer..
Luis Fisher
nah i think you're right, under side is too even
Zachary Powell
Yes, maybe he also used a compass and pricked every hole. Or he took a ruler and measured out each stitch.
Asher Bennett
Yeah I'm going to need a wee bit chunk of these $10 mil if you end up getting them, thanks.
William Diaz
this thread is a godsend, since i presume there are more than a few leather experts ITT, would you mind spilling some wisdom on whether i could realistically replace a broken brass zipper and loose stitching on this italian leather jacket i've been eyeing that's like 10$ because of the damage, also, i'm a retarded piece of shit, how do i know if a piece of leather is legit?
Carson Davis
depends on what you consider "legit" leather There is full grain, top grain, split, PU coated split
how much wear does the jacket have? pleather will be plastic coated (obviously) so on parts with a lot of wear and streets you'd see that peeling off and exposing the backing. also a full leather jacket will have a lot more weight to it than plastic
replacing a zipper on a jacket is obviously no problem, doesn't matter if it is leather or not just take it to a tailor it's 10$ what could go wrong
Henry Lewis
scratch that, most likely machined.
Jayden Bell
the jacket i'm scouting out seems like it's really thick and the surface has a lot of scratches and blemishes, also could you divulge a bit on the different kinds of leather because i'm kind of new to all of this.
Kayden Perez
bump so that the saga may continue 2moro morning don't miss it!
Jackson Stewart
Are you a feather expert tho?
Nolan Ross
OP you should try to complement the info you got here by asking on /out/ and /diy/
Joseph Taylor
Wudn't that kinda be redundant at this point?
Dominic Ramirez
be real he aint gonna show
Jack Sanchez
>doesn't greentext >Types in broken nigger English Fuck you OP OK that's gator skin now duck off
Zachary Long
It looks like King Tuna Fish leather to me. Very nice a rare. That belt probably goes for 12k.