Real Hide Information -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Upholstered furniture is made to the most exacting standards and has been sold throughout the world for many years. Properly cared for the beauty of it's individual characteristics will increase with age. However, unlike the synthetic materials that most of us have become used to, no two pieces of leather are exactly the same and to help owners or prospective owners of our fine furniture to understand the unusual but beneficial characteristics of REAL HIDE we reprint herein an extract from a Trade Publication on this precise matter. "The ideal leather in terms of looks and feel is that which has been tanned and softened, but has no finish on it at all. Like that it is unmistakable as anything but natural leather. Unfortunately, in that condition it is like a piece of blotting paper and will absorb and retain anything that is dropped on it. In no time at all it will look like nothing on earth. At the other end of the scale is a hide that has had the top grain buffed off to leave it looking perfectly flat, a lot of finish put on it to protect it and finally, a heavy artificial grain stamped on it in place of the natural one removed earlier. These are the two ends of the scale:- one absolutely natural but impractical, the other very practical but unpleasant to use and feel, in fact leather backed paint. The best quality leather is a compromise between these two extremes. The major problem that faces a salesman selling a good quality leather desk top chair or suite appears to be in recognising and explaining the natural marks that inevitably appear in Hide. Members of the public seem to forget that cows wander about in fields and encounter barbed wire fences and warble flies, as well as acquiring the wrinkles and creases that come with age. When a barbed wire scratch heals it leaves a slightly raised line which shows through under the finish on a piece of leather. The scar left by a warble fly is a lump just like a small mosquito bite. Neither of these marks, provided they are healed, are a sign of weakness nor a threat to the durability of the hide. Like the rib marks, which appear as darker shade lines under the finish, the growth creases in the neck and the grain variation from one part of the hide to another, they prove that leather is natural and not rolled off a machine in an endless strip. It has become plain that if these features are pointed out when an article is being sold, then the customer will understand them and is quite likely to point them out to friends and neighbours as being proof of the real thing." ------------------ . Copyright © Oak Valley Furniture All rights reserved.