Help me choose between two BY leathers, grade 2 vs grade 5?

We are ordering a BY sectional. We narrowed it down to 2 leather choices, both a slate gray generally.

Choice 1: 9085-95-A Elmotique Slate from the Grafton Square Collection. Grade 5 Aniline.
Choice 2: 9012--94 AP = Outsider Steel from the Bentley Place Colleciton. Grade 2 Aniline Plus.

Spouse favors Choice 2 solely on the basis and belief that it will be more resistant to scratches from our cat's claws as he tries to climb on it. He won't deliberately scratch it but just normal climbing on and off we found scratched our older sofa.

I favor Choice 1 because it feels better, softer on the hand. The color is richer too. I think Choice 1 looks cheap. Also I think Choice 2 is more likely to scratch all the way through the pigment?

We no longer have kids in the house so this sofa is really for the two of us to use in our television room. If it wasn't for the cat it wouldn't be much of an issue. The 5 is simply nicer.

Are we making a mistake going with with 1?

We have a chair with leather from the Bentley Place Collection....it was a grade 3 protected leather and knowing what we know now I wish we would have upped our leather choice to the anilines.....ours is definitely not as soft or comfortable as we had hoped. Plus having wear issues with the leather as its a "painted" leather, but thats simply the wrong choice in leather on our part. Cordoba should be removed as a choice because the color literally wears off in a matter on months...to the point of if we want the chair to look good we just can't use it. Ridiculous! Aniline is the way to go, and my opinion is go with the one that feels the best if comfort is what your after, that way you won't have any regrets.

If money were no object and the room doesn't receive direct sunlight I'd choose the grade 5. The color is beautiful. I have read on this site that animals can scratch the coating on protected leathers but that they can be rubbed out with the hand on aniline leathers. On the other hand if your room receives lots of direct sunlight using a UV protectant on a piece as large as a sectional every six months could become a chore. If you can swing the cost I'd say go for Grafton Square. It is pretty easy spending other people's money however. In the leather thread there is a picture of a gray leather sofa that is absolutely stunning.

Remember there are really only two classes of leather when all is said and done:

1) Painted or Topcoated
2) Vegetable Dyed

I don't like the labels 'protected' and 'unprotected' because it makes you think (as a retail consumer) that one is armored, the other is fragile, and that's not the case. In fact, I'm on a mini-crusade to eliminate that terminology from the industry (and have spoke with the CEO's of the leather manufacturing companies) to get away from using those terms. All 'protected' really means is its painted or top-coated, nothing more.

So, let's look into these 'scratches' a bit more. When you run a pressure point across a painted surface what happens? Nothing. Unless you run it VERY hard in which case you scratch through the paint to the core below. While the painted surface is more resistant to these surface scratches, it will give way and get damaged if the pressure is severe enough, and only a re-paint will repair it. Now run that same pressure across an aniline (dyed) hide. If its a 'pull-up' leather, then its designed to lighten with pressure to show a color burst just as you will see high/low spots with use and during the build. Its a 'bomber jacket' look very popular on pieces from Restoration Hardware and Polo, etc. That 'scratch' is just pressure on a pull-up, and you can rub it out with heat and pressure from a balled-up fist as it simply re-flows the waxes - there is no damage to the leather.

Personally, in my own home, I will only ever buy aniline, which is 'real leather'. I save the painted leathers for my tennis shoes from Korea and China. I don't want to sit upon a painted surface, as it feels artificial and plastick-y. I don't worry about stains on the aniline, as experience as shown anything that does stain it will work itself out over a few days if you don't set the stain with water. My wife and I raised two kids on pure aniline hides in the family room, and those pieces now 25 years old are still in use today.

I have never had a customer say "I regret buying the nice aniline and which I had bought a finished leather", but I have had dozens tell me that if they had it to do over they wish they had gone with the pure aniline hides.