Need Help! Question on leather measurement

[GLW]

I ordered 6 feet of leather from a leather supplier (who shall remain nameless). I received the leather, but it appears to me that I was shorted over 1/2 foot of leather. I know that every part of the hide is counted, even if it is scrap, and that the edges are uneven, but the square footage doesn't right to my eyes.

Since I am new to purchasing leather, I would like to get the opinion of you who have been purchasing leather for a good while. I am attaching photos that show the leather piece and my tape measure, showing the 3'x2' measurements.

What do you think? Is there a full 6 feet of leather here, or less than that?

Thanks for you help!

[TinkerTailor]

Doesn't look far off, but the perspective in the pictures isn't perfect. One way to check is to draw a quick 6"x6" grid on the floor/table and count how many squares are covered up by the hide. Guestimate the 1/2 and quarter squares.

Edited December 2, 2016 by TinkerTailor

[JerseyFirefighter]

I was always curious as to how you know you're not being shorted. I know that the suppliers have a much better stake invested in how to calibrate sq footage, but there's always a question now and then if some places are as accurate as they claim. 

[byggyns]

When the pieces have the stamp on the back with the square footage, then it was probably measured by laser at the tannery. Other than that, it was probably measured by hand by the distributor/leather store and is subject to the inaccuracies within human hands.

[JLSleather]

Yeah, that prolly IS about 6 feet.  But around here, I'm more concerned with the quality than the exact dimensions.  I mean, if I order 20 feet of "A-grade" leather, then If it HAS TO be wrong, I'd rather get 19 feet of "A" better than 20 feet of "B MINUS" (which is very frequent with some suppliers).

 

[SewNice336]

I had a similar issue. The replies to this post were extremely helpful to me. Thanks!

[HENDREFORGAN]

There is a wonderful machine to watch in operation at one of my suppliers, Metropolitan leather, that is Victorian in it's design/construction yet still used given it can be depended upon to give an EXACT square footage of any hide of any shape put through it.  There are modern equivalents and it's likely one of these that has determined the size of your purchased hide . . though a sales man with integrity would only price on "quarters" and never "round up" to an even figure.

Basically the hide is passed through soft rollers and then as it does so little spring loaded pins are raised when hide is detected but not when the edge has passed or even a hole in the hide.  The machine counts the number of pins so raised and, voilà, a dial reads out the EXACT area.  This method is unparalleled in calculating the true size of any leather hide.

However, as the crafts-person who will then turn this hide into work pieces, I suspect most like me take a visual measurement of the roughly rectangular central section and go from there . . and most of the time that curly edge reduces the area we use yet, when the above machine is used, you paid for it!