Saddleback Leather recently produced a series of short videos explaining how their bags are made. For as much talk as there’s been on a “return to quality,” marketing pitches (and the blogs that recycle them) are usually quite superficial. It’s nice then to have the owner of a company explain why they choose certain materials over others, and what to look out for when buying similar products.

There are nine videos in all, but I’ve included just three here that I like. The first, above, explains the difference between full grain, top grain, “genuine,” and bonded leather. The other two are about threads and sewing techniques.

Of course, there’s some stuff that seems to have been left out – such as a discussion of corrected grain leather – but given that each video is long enough as it is, Dave does a great job of explaining the qualities behind his bags.