Facts About Cordovan Leather

[Thor]

I'm looking for some more facts about cordovan leather.

What I know thus far is that the term initially described a certain kind of fine leather coming from Córdoba, Spain and that since the 1930s it was made mainly and later solely from horse hide.

In some books it is mentioned as an old term for Marocco goat skin, which I can't really believe to be true as that would mean a specialization towards goat skin for it and not as in the definition I found in an old trade specific dictionary:

cordovan leather (a soft vegetable tanned leather, black or coloured, made from any class of hide, but in recent years usually made from horse hides)

Any further information on this is welcome.

[Ferg]

Horween is maybe the only tannery doing Cordovan Shell Horse in the USA. I know of at least one Italian tannery that does it also.

Horween has a video of their tannery that is educational as well as very interesting. If you haven't seen it you should.

Over sixty years ago I bought Cordovan from Horween. For those not knowing what portion of Horse Hide it comes from.... The Rump of the horse.

There are two shell shaped areas the cordovan is cut from. Thus: Shell Cordovan. The leather has the tightest grain of any I have used in the weights available.

You cannot tool it but it will take a hot, gold, transfer as no other.

Hard to come by most of the time since the high end shoe and accessory manufacturers use almost all Horween has at any given time.

I have two cordovan shells I bought from Horween three years ago. I have cut an exterior for a wallet from one the other is untouched. They aren't as nice as what I used to buy.

ferg

Edited February 21, 2016 by 50 years leather

[Thor]

Thank you ferg! I believe this is the video you're referring to:

https://vimeo.com/81233973

I'm a little irritated by the color of the hide as it looks blue at one point and this would mean that it was chrome tanned which Cordovan leather shouldn't be and I believe it isn't. Is there an explanation on this somewhere?

What I did notice is that Horween uses a pasting drying method. This increases (stretches) the amount of hide by about 10%. Nothing wrong with that. In fact I believe this is pretty good.

Further I have seen that they are glazing the hide, which must be due to the fact that in Cordovan leather the flesh side is the "upper" side and the grain side will be the bottom side. If I observed it correctly they are even grinding off the grain side.

Also as you pointed out already is that only the rump (shell) is used by Horween, which gives it the name Shell Cordovan and is visible by the oval shaped forms of leather.

Its main use seems to be for shoe making according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_cordovan

ferg, do you know which tannery in Italy is making Cordovan leather?

Here's another video on the tanning process at Horween https://vimeo.com/47127960 and this one here is a bit more detailed. The person, I believe to be the "tanner" points out a hair line on the horse which must be the area between hind quarters and flank.

Since Horween Leather Co. is existing since 1905, does that mean that they have ever since made Cordovan leather from horse hides?

[ConradPark]

Here in the UK, Clayton of Chesterfield produces a top quality Shell Cordovan of traditional Horse Rump leather. They ship worldwide, and while not as famous as some other tanneries, they are indeed of top quality, delivering their skins to most of the top shoe manufacturers in England.

[Thor]

From what I've read, it seems like shell is NOT top grain/full grain leather in the way most of us think about it... it looks like it comes from the muscle layer underneath, and that this gives it its unique qualities.

Thanks Mike. That sounds odd to me or I don't understand it. The muscle layer doesn't have enough collagen to form leather. Leather is formed from the dermis of the skin. So either I really don't understand what you're trying to explain or something else is getting me off track here.

Nick Horween writes here http://horween.com/101/chromexcel-2/ that in the case of Chromexcel the hides are chrome tanned, so the blue color would truly mean that those hides are chrome tanned. He then writes about "wet blue", which is the common name for an unfinished chrome tanned hide.

Considering this I will have to change my definition of Shell Cordovan. They can either be veg or chrome tanned.

Conrad do you have a link to this UK tannery?

[Thor]

Once again thank you Mike for clarifying this.

I converted the article on kinowear.com to pdf due to the disturbing advertisements there and uploaded it here.

Main key points are:

1. From around 1600 until 1900 Cordovan was synonymous with goat leather from Cordoba, Spain
2. Since 1900 it is synonymous with veg tanned horse leather
3. There also is a deep red color by the name Cordovan

Shell Cordovan is made from the dense portion of the horses rump, where the only difference is between the horses skin and cow skin.

Showing a cross section of horse skin.

The latest article you linked explains that the Epidermis is removed. This is what we generally refer to as grain. It then refers to a hyaline layer. So when the other article said below the skin it actually meant below the epidermis. That would make sense to me as it is a common mistake to refer to the Epidermis as the skin.

Btw. hyaline layers are found in humans as well, but I doubt that it can be really compared.

kinowear.com-Cordovan the masculine mans leather.pdf

[Thor]

So the common use of the word Cordovan wouldn't be correct?

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cordovan this link suggests that Cordovan would mean the leather itself, and Shell Cordovan would be a more precise name for the Cordovan leather cut from the hind of the horse.

• Shell: A dense fiber structure found only in the hindquarters of equine animals.

On their website I can only find this chart, which you posted already under the menu Equine Hide Chart and then under full tannage list the term Cordovan with the facts of its features, which are:

Straight vegetable tanned,

• Vegetable Tanned: A tanning method that employs vegetable liquors derived from tree barks. This method of tanning is very traditional and takes longer to achieve than chrome tanning.

therefore it's tanned without chrome.

It is Hot Stuffed

• Hot Stuffed: Leather that has been nourished and conditioned with unrefined oils and greases. This is achieved without the use of water and emulsifiers and gives a much richer feel. Hot stuffed leathers typically exhibit pull-up and good water resistance.

Only light weights are available (probably due to the fact that the grain is missing and swelling requires the epidermis)

It's pasted, as I identified earlier

• Pasted: Leather that has been dried by fixing it to large glass or ceramic plates. Pasted leathers have very little stretch and smooth grain character.

It's glazed as visible in the video as well

• Hand Glazed: Leather that has been polished with a glass rod.

And it is aniline finished, meaning that there is no pigmented covering of the surface

• Aniline: Dyes and finishes that contain no pigment. When used on leather they provide a rich, clear stain that allows the natural character of the article to be seen.

And at last it has a smooth feeling.

Bulleted definitions are from Horween's page at http://horween.com/leathers/definitions/

So if Cordovan and Shell Cordovan are the same, I wonder if the rest is just called horse leather then.

On this German page I found some more info http://www.leder-info.de/index.php/Cordovan. They say that only hides from heavy draft horses would be good for Shell Cordovan. Is there any confirmation on this?

Further they are recommending only try cleaning of Cordovan as the leather would swell if cleaned wet. This sounds odd as it would be contrary to what was said before about the features of this leather.

[Thor]

Birdman, thanks for notifying me of that post. http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=68856&p=449653

This is a manufacturer within Europe. Their website doesn't provide any information as of yet, so no real information available at this time.

[nrk]

Birdman, thanks for notifying me of that post. http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=68856&p=449653

This is a manufacturer within Europe. Their website doesn't provide any information as of yet, so no real information available at this time.

hehe

i've told him almost the same , and he got frustrated )

I have researched shell cordovan leather several times, and get conclusion, that the best manufacturers are Horween and Clayton's. Haven't tried yet, but defntly will.

PS

there is also one or two manufacturers in Japan, which produce shell cordovan. Google it. Almost all japan leathercrafters is those.

Edited March 20, 2016 by nrk

[biglew]

I am just lucky that I work with Shell Cordovan from horween on a fairly regular basis.... The stuff is so nice to work with! It is real pricey but has a great finish to it.

[ConradPark]

Google exist for a reason.

[nrk]

I am just lucky that I work with Shell Cordovan from horween on a fairly regular basis.... The stuff is so nice to work with! It is real pricey but has a great finish to it.

which one do u use? horween?