F-21 t1_j4otn5p wrote on January 17, 2023 at 5:18 AM

Reply to comment by regaphysics in Leather vs Nylon for a Travel Bag by ms_misfit0808

> Quality doesn’t really correlate with how much maintenance. Many “lower quality” leathers actually usually require less maintenance

Isn't that a correlation?

Anyway, what is high quality and what is low quality? I was not talking about quality tiers?

Afaik quality of something is an attribute of it, and maintenance frequency is one of the qualities that leather can have.

regaphysics t1_j4ovlep wrote on January 17, 2023 at 5:37 AM

There are high quality leather products that require a lot of maintenance, and low quality leather that requires little maintenance. If there’s any correlation, it’s weak.

Generally leather quality is based on the quality of the hide (what part of the hide, what weather conditions the cows lived in, what scars they had, etc.), the type of leather (full grain, corrected grain etc), thickness, and the quality of the tanning.

Yes you can judge leather by the amount of maintenance it requires, but you’d be eliminating many of the better options in other metrics.