If you’re relatively new here, you might not know that I’m a bit of a leather goods enthusiast. I have a category on my blog dedicated to leather, and I like to review the various leather-made goods I buy. To be clear, I do not like designer leather goods; instead, I seek out independent leatherworkers so I can support smaller businesses without having to pay the upcharge for the brand name.

One of the leatherworkers I’ve been purchasing belts from for a few years now is Jacob Hill Leather Co. from Belmont, North Carolina. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten a new belt—not since before the pandemic, in fact—so I figured I would do some leisurely browsing to see if anything caught my eye.

Jacob Hill Leather has a limited-edition white lightning American bison collection, and one of the items was a belt.

The total I paid for the product plus shipping is US$204.31, which is considerably lower than some of my other belts. Overall, I’m decently satisfied with the purchase. This is my first leather good made out of bison, and previously, I thought that bison was similar to cowhide in its texture. I was pleasantly surprised when this American bison belt arrived and it had a much more lumpy, unique, and interesting texture.

The website advertised this belt as having a special black matte buckle, but mine arrived with the standard chrome one. This has sort of been a recurring theme for me with Jacob Hill Leather—albeit minor, there is always some sort of issue with my belts.

For my white smoke hornback saltwater crocodile belt, the length of the belt was shorter than what I ordered, and I was missing the standard buckle (I pur­chased an extra buckle on the side as a separate item, and they instead replaced the belt’s standard buckle with the extra one instead of giving me both). For my Indonesian stingray rowstone belt, the holes were punched in a way that some of the rowstones were shattered instead of being cleanly cut, and the hardware holding the belt loops in place arrived already stripped of paint.

So why do I keep ordering from them? The issues are generally so minor that it doesn’t materially affect my appreciation of the final product, and most importantly, this is the best value-to-price ratio I’ve seen in leather belts. Even considering the errors, the price is just too good to pass up—the next leatherworker I’ve seen with this level of craftsmanship and leather quality is at least one-and-a-half to two times the price.

Like usual, I don’t want to go overboard on buying leather goods because I can very easily go overboard, so I’ll probably go on a shopping cooldown for a bit, but I’m looking forward to seeing what Jacob Hill’s next special edition or limited release product is going to be.

Note: I was not compensated in any manner for this review and do not plan to accept any compensation offers after-the-fact. Jacob Hill Leather was not provided with an opportunity to read or revise this blog post prior to publication.

A few years ago, one of my co-workers found out about my intriguing affinity towards collecting exotic leather goods, and once the news spread, I was referred to as the “leather guy” for a little while. But since then, because of the fact that work has substantially ramped up and I’ve been traveling a lot since the beginning of the pandemic, I haven’t really added anything new to my collection, and the hype died down.

I like my exotic leather goods to be functional. For example, I frequently wear a stingray belt because of its durability and how ef­fectively it serves as a sturdy gun belt, and I carry a stingray wallet daily (and get uncomfortable comments once in a while from people with trypophobia).

However, there is only so much of your life you can turn into high-quality leather. With all my belts, my boots, and even my office chair back at home being made of full-grain leather, I wanted to start getting creative.

 
As a young kid, I loved watching baseball. At one point, I’m pretty sure I had the entire roster of the Chicago Cubs memorized (and a majority of the Chicago White Sox too), and I would tune in to watch baseball every time a local team was playing. But just as quickly as I had gained interest in the sport, I became disinterested, and I barely watched it ever again for some mysterious reason that I still don’t know to this day.

Not too long ago, I saw some baseball highlight videos pop up in my recommendations on YouTube, and it gave me flashbacks of my childhood and got me thinking. Back then, little Adam would’ve loved to have some baseball memorabilia from his favorite baseball players. As part of my mission to do everything during adulthood that I’ve always wanted to do as a child but never had the opportunity to do, I decided that a baseball would be my next exotic leather good.

In a similar process as I did for my other leather goods, I went scouting for a leathercrafter. During my search, I found a company called Comstock Her­it­age that already had alligator leather baseballs for sale. I reached out to them and arranged a custom order.

 
Usually, baseballs have the manufacturer, a professional team, and a player’s signature engraved or debossed into the surface. Little Adam would’ve wanted a Chicago Cubs baseball, but adult Adam doesn’t care about baseball players. However, I felt like having a blank baseball would be boring, so I came up with an alternative.

Although I’m not a fan of baseball players, what I am a fan of are great leathercrafters. So, in place of the aforementioned three items, I requested them to be substituted with the company’s name, the leathercrafter’s signature, and some information detailing the creation of the baseball.

What I was going for here was, if you look at the baseball from far away, it just looks like a plain old normal baseball, but once you get closer, you realize that the leather is alligator instead of cow or horse, and the markings are relevant to the actual creation of this particular baseball, as opposed to ref­er­encing the general sport of baseball.

 
This is how the final product came out:

This ended up being exactly as I had hoped, which I think is a fairly large compliment in itself, considering how unrealistically high my standards usually are.

The density of the core feels exactly like what I’d expect from a real baseball. The stitching is flawless throughout. The grooves of the alligator skin appears to have made the debossing and ink fill process a bit more difficult, but the leathercrafter still tackled that challenge well. The texture of the gator is dynamic, and the baseball contains everything from the extra wrinkly segments to the broader and smoother panels.

With the extra customization options, as well as sales tax for being in-state, this ended up costing a little bit over US$350. If you’re interested in pur­chas­ing your own, Comstock Heritage has hand-crafted alligator baseballs listed in their online shop.

 
Going back to the note about me liking my exotic leather goods to be functional, yes, I realize that I am most likely not going to be throwing around this particular baseball and playing catch with it (… or am I?). With that being said, once I purchase a baseball display stand, I think this is going to serve as a very nice desk decoration, and I’m very satisfied with my purchase.

 
Note: I was not compensated in any manner for this review and do not plan to accept any compensation offers after-the-fact. Comstock Heritage was not provided with an opportunity to read or revise this blog post prior to publication.

 
That question was obviously a result of my recent blog post about my Indonesian stingray rowstone belt, in which I also referenced my white smoke hornback saltwater crocodile belt, both belts being made out of unusually exotic leathers.

Now I definitely think that stingray and crocodile fall in the realm of “normal” when considering types of belts, but when other people say “normal,” I imagine they’re thinking about less exotic leathers, like cowhide. I have an Italian full grain leather belt hand-crafted in Rutland, England by the British Belt Company, which they designed as part of a partnership with Massdrop.

I actually got this belt for free because Massdrop (today known as just “Drop”) used to be partnered with Tempo Storm, and as part of the partnership, they sent me a care package with a bunch of Massdrop goodies.

Back when they first sent me my samples, I did an unboxing and review of the Jessica GMK Plum custom keycap set and GMK Carbon add-on keycap kit, as well as a photoshoot and review of the NuForce EDC in-ear monitors. I was planning on doing a review of this belt as well, but Massdrop ended up not renewing their partnership with Tempo Storm, so I never actually got around to doing it.

I used to wear this belt a lot when jeans were my pants of choice a few years ago—I would throw on this natural brown leather belt and wear brown leather boots to match.

Nowadays, I’ve gotten quite a liking for slim-fit, ultra stretchy, Asian-made biker pants. They look slightly stiff and bulky on the outside, which makes them seem uncomfortable considering how tight they fit, but they’re actually the most comfortable and flexible pants I’ve ever worn. A vegetable-tanned, natural brown leather belt doesn’t really match too well with those kinds of pants, which is why I opted for black and white exotic skins.

Regardless, the Italian leather belt is actually really nice. One of my favorite features about leather products is when the clean cuts are shown on the sides and aren’t covered up in any kind of glazing or edge paint; this belt by the British Belt Company shows those raw cuts. It also has an everlasting aroma of leather (I got this belt over two years ago and it still has the rich, pleasant leather smell), and it’s one of those leathers that develops a gorgeous patina over time.

I believe you can snag one of these for less than $50, which makes it one of the most affordable leather products in my wardrobe, and if you’re a new leather goods enthusiast (or one on a tight budget), this is definitely a great starter item.

Although I don’t actively wear mine anymore, I’ll be keeping it safely stored in my closet, because my dress preferences will almost certainly change as time goes on, and this belt may compliment some of my preferred outfits again in the future.

I published a blog post yesterday titled “I got myself a new stingray wallet” where I explained why I got rid of my Louis Vuitton Gaspar Wallet made out of canvas and replaced it with a custom-ordered, hand-crafted leather wallet with stingray exterior and kangaroo interior. After posting, one of the ques­tions I got was how I knew I would like stingray.

There’s actually a very simple and straightforward answer to that. Early this year, I purchased a white smoke hornback saltwater crocodile belt from Jacob Hill Leather Co., and after I received that belt and was satisfied with it, I made a repeat purchase.

The next purchase I made with Jacob Hill Leather Co. was an Indonesian stingray rowstone belt. It was made with the same level of high-quality ma­te­ri­als as my crocodile belt, and after feeling the stingray skin, I knew that stingray would be my leather of choice.

You may notice that this stingray looks noticeably different than the stingray that I posted yesterday on my wallet. My wallet is made out of completely polished stingray (to create an entirely smooth and mirror-like finish), while my belt only has the center rowstone area polished. That means that the center is similar to my wallet, but the outer edges of the belt are far more bumpy.

If you were to run your finger down the sides of the belt (the black part), it would feel close to extremely coarse sandpaper with extremely low grit, but with each of the nodes being much larger and not as aggravating as real sandpaper. It’s not exactly painful to the touch, but if you apply enough pres­sure, it will definitely make the stingray push into your skin.

As a reminder, the little bumps on stingray skin are made out of calcium deposits. Stingray leather doesn’t quite get affected by a traditional patina, but the way that stingray does undergo a patina-like process is when the belt is used enough that day-to-day wear will grind down on the calcium a tiny bit such that it sort of creates a natural, subtle polish on the remainder of the belt.

This grinding process obviously only happens when the belt comes into contact with harder materials though, and your pants definitely are not harder than stingray. As a result, a little bit of extra care is needed when wearing stingray belts as to not damage your belt loops—this belt isn’t just going to smoothly slide off your waist with little effort. At first it was a bit inconvenient, but it barely takes several extra seconds, it’s easy to get used to it, and it ultimately will be a non-factor once the belt goes through its “patina” evolution.

Another question I got about stingray is how the texture doesn’t “weird me out.” I imagine that this question is in reference to trypophobia, or the fear of the sight of clusters of small holes or bumps, especially on the human skin. Even though having some form of trypophobia is actually considered bio­log­i­cal­ly normal, my senses don’t actually really respond too much to trypophobia-triggering patterns, and I usually only have any kind of reaction at all when I see those pictures of a lotus seed head Photoshopped onto someone’s face.

So, apologies in advance if you’re with me in-person and I take out my wallet or you get a glimpse of my belt and you’re repulsed, but I think stingray skin is mesmerizing. I would get more stingray belts, but I very recently spent US$359 on the wallet I posted about yesterday, so I’m on my “exotic leather goods cooldown period” so I don’t end up spending an irresponsible amount of money on luxury products.