Leather Passport Holder

Details

A passport sleeve in 1.2 mm full-grain vegetable-tanned leather, cut at 14 x 10 cm closed so an Indian passport at 125 x 88 mm sits inside with 7 to 8 mm of margin all round and the cover does not bow. Four card slots, one full-width sleeve for boarding passes and one slip for currency. The grade matters more here than the size does. Hide is sold in four steps and the labels are written to blur them. Full-grain is the outer surface as it grew, pores and all, and it is the densest layer in the hide. Top-grain is that surface sanded away and refinished. Genuine leather is a split off the lower layer with a grain embossed into it, the second-worst of the four, named genuine precisely because it reads like an assurance. Bonded leather is dust glued to a backing. On a passport cover the fourth grade is common, because the item is thin, cheap and mostly hidden in a bag. It is unlined and unglued, so nothing inside can separate or bubble in humidity, which is what ruins a lined passport cover in a coastal summer. Edges are burnished rather than painted, because painted edges chip and then peel off in a strip.

• 1.2 mm full-grain vegetable-tanned leather, unlined, ISO 2589
• Grain uncorrected, ISO 17131, never a split and never a bonded sheet
• Chromic oxide nil by ISO 5398, chrome VI below 3 mg per kg by ISO 17075-1
• Sized to the Indian passport at 125 x 88 mm, no bowing at the cover
• Four card slots, one boarding pass sleeve, one currency slip
• Hand saddle-stitched in waxed linen, no glue between any two layers
• Burnished edges in three passes, no edge paint to chip
• Free restitching for life
• No bonded leather, no plastic window, no synthetic lining
• The leather takes a dark corner where your thumb opens it, and the natural tan will end up a different colour from the one that arrived. That is the only ageing worth having.