Originally Posted by
drcollie
Correct, I was talking with Pamela at Leather Solutions last week and she and I both agree that Aniline Plus is just another form of a coated leather. There is lots of confusion on that, and most people do get it wrong, even people in the business. For the natural stuff, it has to be a pure aniline (if you want to go that way). Only 6% of all hides world-wide are "clean" enough to be a pure aniline, so that means they are going to be more costly, no way around that. There are a few GR 2 pure anilines in H&M (notably Yardley and Atticus) but the better stuff is GR 3 and up.
As to costs, here' a general guideline on H&M leather:
Grade 2: 15% more than GR 1
Grade 3: 15% more than GR 2
Grade 4: 22% mode than GR 3
Grade 5: 20 % more than GR 4
Those are approximations and vary by piece. The way I look at it - if you take care of the piece and don't place it in direct sunlight, and do your maintenance on the hide, you should easily get 30 years out of it. In that same 30 years, you would probably swap cars out 4 times. So while the front end cost may seem high to get what you want when you amortize it over useful life its not much at all. Let's stay the hide you really like is $ 1,200 more on a sofa, divided by 30 years that comes out to $ 40 a year, and that's small potatoes to get something you love vs. something that will make do.