New to the board. Great to be here. I've read a lot of the stickies so forgive my ignorance on these subjects, but I think my wife and I were conned by a high end national furniture place that sold us a power reclining sofa and loveseat. The sales person said the item was 100% leather. She even referred to it as "top grain". On the website for the product, the description is intentionally vague and it is called "refined sable leather". There is no spec sheet. However, in the Q&A section, the company answers customer questions and 3 times it refers to the leather as "top grain".
My problem is that this sofa is too delicate. I have 3 boys under 8 and the salesperson said this set would hold up with kids. Instead, see the attached photo. It is pretty easy to scratch and it has this very this super thin protective layer that has the grain stamped on it. No way is that protective layer leather or "top grain" leather. The top layer, after only 7 months, is coming off in a couple spots. The manufacturer is some company out of Hong Kong called Violino. They were bragging in a furniture today article a few years back about how they are using "split" leather.
My question for the experts here is this...can you tell from that picture whether this is split leather (the layer underneath the paper thin top coat)? If so, is this the bottom layer of the hide? Is there any way their claim of top grain leather can be true? I'd be shocked if it is.
Thanks for your help.