First Visit To Tandy Leather

[Bearonabike]

I paid my first visit to Tandy leather today. It is the store in Maitland, Fl. The selection was nice but the prices were fairly shocking. I'm new to leatherworking and wasn't expecting their price structure. I found the "join our club" option to be cost prohibitive as this is a hobby and my only "customers" will be my wife, daughter, and myself.

Any idea on suppliers that aren't so hard on the wallet? I'm not looking for the Tandy "gold member" prices (which are pretty low) but something that makes my stash for hobby cash go a little further than 1-2 tools.

-Bearonabike

[electrathon]

Tandy is sort of like Harbor Freight on their sales. Their regular prices are jacked up but have lots of sales at significant discounts. Sign up online for emails.

Aaron

[HellfireJack]

Leatherworking is like just about any other hobby. You're going to pay to do it. Like electrathon said, sign up for their emails to get the sales announcements. Follow the sales fliers for a few months and watch the prices and you'll see where you can save money.

But I got bad news for you though. Tandy is the cheap source unfortunately. High end stamps can run easily over 50 bucks a pop. High end hand tools over 50 as well. Some, like round knives, are easily over 150. We're not even talking about leather or hardware yet. Tandy's quality on the very inexpensive stuff is hit and miss but at least you're learning for less.

The gold membership easily pays for itself btw. You get about 2-4 50% off any item but leather and machines offers a year and you usually get a free crafttool stamp or similar once a month in their newsletter. That's on top of their normal membership discounts.

[mrdabeetle]

Individual stores have a "manager's special", so if you can get to one, you can sometimes find great deals on items they ordered by mistake or were discontinued. I recently got a big bag of rivetback conchos for $2. (plus my discount)

You might check pawn shops and yard sales. I've found a few great quality tools for cheap (found a C.S. Osbourne draw gauge for a dollar). Ebay sometimes has some lots of tools. Members here sometimes sell their tools when they "retire" from leatherwork.

[WinterBear]

I have to agree with everyone else--sign up for and watch the paper and email flyers--a recent paper flyer had the stamps for half off, and Craftsman oak tooling sides for $60 for the whole thing (it pays to go early for leather, so you can pick through the pile). The flyer also usually has a coupon that is 50% off one item, or 25% off leather. The email flyers will often have different items than the mailing flyer. See if they have any over-runs, or a bit that was damaged (if you take in some pattern pieces cut from something you can see through, you can lay them out on a hide or shoulder to see if you can work around any bad spots before you buy), and take a rummage through the scrap bins-- I have found some fantastic stuff that way. Additionally, each individual store will have a special here and there--the local Tandy here usually has shoulders for sale on Saturday mornings when the tooling classes are in session.

[Sylvia]

I paid my first visit to Tandy leather today. It is the store in Maitland, Fl. The selection was nice but the prices were fairly shocking. I'm new to leatherworking and wasn't expecting their price structure. I found the "join our club" option to be cost prohibitive as this is a hobby and my only "customers" will be my wife, daughter, and myself.

Any idea on suppliers that aren't so hard on the wallet? I'm not looking for the Tandy "gold member" prices (which are pretty low) but something that makes my stash for hobby cash go a little further than 1-2 tools.

-Bearonabike

Leather working is a lot like any other specialty. Attach "leathercraft" to it and whoa the price is insane!

First go get this coupon code.... Tandy posts them at retailmenot.com here's one for $10 of any order.

1kRet-CR-11

Next join the club. Trust me the $35 is nothing compared to the shipping you'll pay buying here and there. It's good for a year and it's already paid for itself in my case... and I like you THOUGHT this was "just a hobby" I'm working on my first commissioned guitar strap right now. (never say never)

Now, there are special sales exclusively for Tandy Club members... I got $5 off anything $5 or more on leatherlibrary.com I had been eyeballing an ebook but was reluctant to spend the $5.

Have fun with your new "hobby"

S

[Shaunny Rotten]

By my second trip into tandy the $35 membership had already paid for it's self. It doesn't seem to make an enormous amount of difference on the smaller tools, but walk out with 40 feet of leather tucked under your arm and you'll be happy you spent the money earlier rather than later. Right now they are also giving away one free tooling punch just for being a member.

[radar67]

I got into this as a hobby as well. This is the second year I have joined the wholesale club (Elite) and have more than saved the membership fees for both years. Last year I saved over $1000 with the card. This is not a "cheap" hobby to have, the leather alone will take a big bite out of your wallet.

[cowboy bill]

i agree with watching for their "sales", but after dealing with them and another local supplier, i found basically that their "retail" price is actuallu like 50% higher than actual retail and their club price or price with tax numer is a bout "normal" retail. pretty disgusting, its hard to compare quality of leather and therefore their price, check out their prices on say a basic item like pure neatsfoot oil and then see what you can buy it for anywhere else! i would look at checking on over stocked leather like at wicket and craig for instance. also this foreign crab leather isn't worth buying, (in my humble opinion) just like sorry chinese tools and hardware. BILL

[Sylvia]

i agree with watching for their "sales", but after dealing with them and another local supplier, i found basically that their "retail" price is actuallu like 50% higher than actual retail and their club price or price with tax numer is a bout "normal" retail. pretty disgusting, its hard to compare quality of leather and therefore their price, check out their prices on say a basic item like pure neatsfoot oil and then see what you can buy it for anywhere else! i would look at checking on over stocked leather like at wicket and craig for instance. also this foreign crab leather isn't worth buying, (in my humble opinion) just like sorry chinese tools and hardware. BILL

I spent a good deal of time writing Tandy about their foreign made tools and the poor quality of the materials in the kits. I think if more of us grew a pair and wrote a leather "strongly urging" them to bring back quality to their kits and tools and jobs to the USA, we might be able to affect a change at Tandy. just my thoughts.

Funny you say that about "neatsfoot oil" I ran all over this valley near Boise, ID and was never able to find Pure Neatsfoot oil. Most places didn't have it at all... and the only thing they had was a boot dressing paste stuff. I even looked at farm stores and found nada.

Edited February 25, 2012 by Sylvia