Assessing Quality

Leather is a collective term for all hides and skins which have been tanned and surface finished. It is not sufficient, however, to say that a piece of furniture is covered with "genuine leather" because the difference between good and bad furniture leather is at least as great as that between good and bad upholstery fabrics. All leather is not the same. It comes from different kinds of hides, is tanned and treated differently and is finished in a variety of ways.

Some excellent leathers are imported from Scandinavia, Germany, Italy and Austria. The European tanners were the first to offer aniline leathers on a broad scale to the U.S. market. These European hides are often less scarred and larger than American hides since very little barbed wire is used in these countries and there are fewer harmful insects. Imported hides are also larger due to diet and controlled environment. A basic thing to remember is that scarring has nothing to do with quality. Hides, like human skin, have individual wrinkles and scars from healed cuts and insect bites. If you want it to look perfect, you want vinyl, not leather. The imperfections are the hallmarks of the beauty of leather.

When buying leather furniture, look deeper than the leather itself - actually into the construction of the furniture. Make sure the frame of the piece is constructed of hardwood and that joints are corner blocked and double doweled for added strength. Like all upholstered furniture, faulty workmanship can be concealed beneath a pretty cover. Price and the company's reputation (both the tanner and furniture manufacturer) are probably the most reliable ways to recognize quality. In leather furniture, you get what you pay for and remember, the base cost of leather is high. Therefore, when a leather sofa can be listed at $399 retail, it is reasonable to assume that corners have been cut.

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