The Finish on Vintage Leathers

[Seb Lucas]

I probably should know this material (and have certainly read posts here about this) but can anyone briefly summarize the most common leather finishes on vintage leather jackets?

I'm especially interested in the tanning process that best survives the decades and hard conditions; is this mainly chrome tanned? That's certainly my experience with old bike jackets, etc. And were there naked hides back in the day and is this just a new word for an old tanning process?

And veg tanned? My understanding is that these hides aren't as resilient. Or is veg tanned the same as naked hide? You can see I'm all mixed up.

 

[Big J]

I think you're right about chrome tanned being the most resilient.

 

[Seb Lucas]

They're certainly the ones you see 40-60 years on. I wonder if chrome tanned itself comes in various forms. I have a goat jacket that is veg tanned and then chrome re-tanned (Alexander Leathers).