Re: "L" for Leather

Posted by fred kanter On 2011/6/16 11:02:55

Getting opinions of several people who worked in the
trade will not serve you well unless they were working on fairly new Packards during the 1930's adntheir memory is near perfect. People are all entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts. Better to get facts than a bunch of well intentioned guesses

I have in my collection of Packard stuff a 2"thick book of original Packard leather samples for the early 1930's cars prepared as a showroom sample book by Eagle Ottowa Leather Company who was the original supplier. All of the samples are of Colonial Grain which is a deep coarse grain. Interestingly , all colors are an antiqued finish, that is there is one color applied an allowed to dry, then another color is applied and wiped off leaving the first color on the peaks of the grain and the second color in the valleys.

Such combinations as dark gray/lighter gray, brown/tan, and a most surprising green/red which looks quite nice. The sheen I would describe as semigloss. The valleys were flat and the peaks were semigloss. This was accomplished by "polishing" the finished surface with a cloth that was rather thin so it polished the tops only. A "deep" cloth or a sheepskin would reach into the crevices and polish both levels. Leather finishing was an art, now is's all done by machines and the antiqued finish on your leather was done with a light overspray of a darker color.

The grain you show , while not possible to see in detail, is most likely "hair cell" grain which was common in US cars in the 70's. It is a very smooth grain and has little pores in it. Lincoln and Mercury used this color/finish in the 70's