Tobacco Brown Notepad Holder Day 1

My Saddleback Leather tobacco brown medium notepad holder arrived and this thing is a beast!  I actually have a meeting tomorrow night and I can't wait to bring this bad boy out.

It is not as stiff as I thought it would be which is a plus I was afraid there would be a really long break in time.  This piece to date is the largest that I received from Saddleback leather. I was hoping to see some great scaring and I was not disappointed.  You can see below that the later patches are actually calluses.  There are also some great scars that run almost the entire width of the notepad holder.

The scar below actually runs right through the stitching which I think is a neat touch.

I was pleasantly surprised that the interior was not as tight as I had imagined. The notepad easily slid in and the other pockets or easily filled.  There were also some great bug bites on the pigskin lining.

I like that there's plenty of space in the middle which means I can stuff this thing for papers if I need to.

There is some imprinting from the stitching on the left side imprinted on the right side, but this will not likely be a huge issue because once you slide the notepad in it won't be resting against itself.

Loose papers of particular importance on the left and my notepad on the right the ability to fit probably two pens, one in from the top and another one in from the bottom.

Having a nice soft surface to write on is phenomenal?  There is a great soft neoprene feeling material between the pigskin and the leather on the two main panels so that he gives your writing a nice comfortable cushion and really allows the ink to sit nicely on the paper you're not just writing one the letter there's a nice soft cution almost like you would see in a desk pad that really makes this a joy work with.  This pad is not on the spine, I believe so it is easier to open and close.  You can see a slight rise in the pigskin where this pad is.

The copper rivet is very shiny for now, and a really nice touch.

I have a conference for work coming up in about two weeks I am so excited to break this thing out and really put it through its paces at the conference.  I will report back more once I used it a little bit more and can attest to the functionality of the notepad holder.  So these are my initial thoughts on the Saddleback Leather notepad holder and this is "The Life Of My Leather" medium tobacco brown notepad holder addition Day 1.  

Tobacco Brown Wallet Week 3

Week three has come and gone and my wallet is holding up great.  My wife accidentally spilled some breastmilk on the wallet so I decided to use some Chamberlin leather milk liniment to clean the wallet. It did darken up considerably after the cleaning and the breast milk stain came out rather easily.  The wallet is now able to hold the full 18 cards as advertised on the website it did not take very long for the card slots to stretchout enough to accommodate that many cards.  On the inside of the wallet the threads from the card slots are printing on the leather and darkening it slightly under the threads on the opposite side as seen below.

Other markings from the wallet rubbing against itself while in my pocket are now also visible on the inside.

There is a good bit of edge wear on the outside of the stitching along the edge of the leather.  It's darkening, smoothing out, and really adds a nice accent to the wallet and I can't wait until the entire edge is darkened in this way.

I am a little disappointed that the bug bites are no longer as prominent since using the chamberlains leather milk. They are still really nice, however they don't stand out as much as they used to which is to be expected. I'm not sure if the wallet will lighten up again but time will tell.

You can see more pronounced vertical stretch marks in the wallet as it begins to break in on the front as shown above and on the back as shown below.

The wallet is in a way bunching up at the bottom where the wallet folds.  The money compartment is still a little tight and I'm hoping that this breaks and with time.

There is some great texture starting to appear on the wallet at the top of where the wallet folds.  This seems to be a high stress area so the more I use it I believe the texture will continue to develop I am interested to see what will happen after I use the chamberlains leather milk again. I'm not sure if this

 texture will buff out or if it's there to stay. I'm hoping it's here to stay.

So that's the update on The life of my leather, medium tobacco brown wallet edition.  

I have an extra large classic briefcase also in Tobacco Brown, but my wife says I can't have it until Father's Day.  It's my first Fathers Day ever and my wife gave me the best present ever (my daughter) and the second best present ever (my XL Classic) that I can't wait to lay eyes on.  She already told me there is some sweet scarring on the bag! I also ordered a medium notepad holder and that should be arriving tomorrow I will update the blog and post pics of that as I start day one in the life of my leather medium notebook holder edition tomorrow.

Tobacco Brown Wallet Week 1

So I have owned my Medium Tobacco Brown Saddleback Leather Wallet for a week now.  Even though it was bought through the Saddleback Leather website the 100 year warranty is transferrable.  So as they put it, your distant relatives can contact their distant relatives and take care of any issues with the product.

After the first week I have to say that I am extremely pleased with the wallet.  The cards were a little tough to get into the wallet at first but it has become easy to slide them in and out.  The wallet has darkened some in the first week, and I am getting some sweet break in points on this piece.

There is some cool edge wear happening from taking it in and out of my pocket.  It is turning dark between the edge of the leather and where it is stitched.  I am excited to see if this continues.

As you can see the wallet has darkened a bit.

There is a scuff mid way up above the Saddleback signature.  I got that fishing for my keys at my daughters 4 month old photo shoot.  It was Easter Themed.

I forgot to mention in my previous post that the wallet has a nice scar in the pig skin where the wallet folds in the middle, as well as some sweet scars next to the "Blue" logo on the inside.  Check them out.

So the long journey that is the life of my leather begins.

The Purpose

This all started when I was looking to replace my wife's broken down and beat up wallet.  I searched Esty and Ebay and all the wallets I found on there were junk that were made in China.  I found one that I liked but with her birthday only 2 weeks away I didn't think it would arrive in time.  I began searching for handmade leather wallets on google and I came upon the Saddleback Leather website.  Their products were exactly the type and quality I was looking for.  I watched the videos and read the reviews, and decided this was the wallet I was going to get her.  I pulled the trigger.  The wallet arrived two days later from Texas and I was blown away by the quality and the smell!  I got her the long tri-fold wallet in Dark Coffee Brown. I then proceeded to watch every video on their website watching their bags travel and age.  I saw that they leave things like bug bites, scars, and brands in their leather (not cutting them away to make the leather look perfect) because the story of their product starts with the cow, and we get the opportunity to add to that story as we accumulate marks and patina on the items.  They say because they are imperfect makes them perfect!  This really resonated with me.  I set out to buy myself a wallet.  I wanted a medium bi-fold in Tobacco Brown.  They were sold out on the website, so I took to Ebay and found a few and placed bids.  I was outbid on several before I finally landed the one I wanted.

  

This is a picture of the wallet on day 1 (April 3, 2014).  There are two distinct black bug bites on the left side of the wallet as well as one just above the S in Saddleback that is slightly less visible.   I thought it would be fun to follow the life of this wallet and any future Saddleback products I purchase (I have my eye on their XL Classic Leather Briefcase in Tobacco Brown) to see how they age, break in, and their travels.  I will provide real world reviews at different points in time as well as chronicle any scratches, scuffs, dings, dents etc so that the life of my leather can be chronicled.