A Lesson in Leather
Why Full Grain Leather over Top Grain, Genuine or Bonded Leather?
Full-grain: The best leather money can buy. The closer we get to the surface of the hide, the more dense the fibers and grain. The further you get away from the surface the more likely the leather will weaken and pull apart. Full-grain leather is the strongest, most durable and, best yet, helps distribute the weight of your guitar far better than any other type of leather.
Beyond the attributes of strength and durability, full-grain leather also retains the oils and preservatives, causing the leather to burnish and beautify with age. Over time, our leather will develop real, distinguishing character. We never spray paint our leather to look aged or give it personality. Fake distressing is like lip-syncing at a live performance. We don’t do fake.
Sure, full-grain is much more expensive, but it’s well worth it.
Now, if you’re curious, our list continues with the three other types of leather we don’t use:
Top-grain: Not as strong and durable as full-grain and doesn’t age as well. Top-grain has the very top of the hide shaved off to eliminate aesthetic imperfections. But see, at Anthology Gear, we like these imperfections; they add character to the leather. Top-grain is like digital, auto-tuned vocals. We’re about analog.
Genuine: Genuinely worse than top-grain. When I was younger, I always assumed genuine leather must be good. Hey, it’s “genuine”. Well, so is acne. Next!
Bonded: The hot dog of the leather world. In other words, leftover scraps are ground up and glued together kind of like particleboard. Now you know.