Black Mountains Leather Tools

[Dunluce]

I came across Black Mountains Leather recently. They have some nice looking tools and but I don’t know anything about them (the site is very sparse on words and descriptions). I am wondering if anyone out there have used them or any of their tools, particularly their pricking irons. You can find them at https://www.blackmountainsleather.com/

[ScoobyNewbie]

Those look very cool and the prices don’t look bad either.

[bermudahwin]

They seem to be in Canada from the Domain details, but I cannot verify anything else about location, so even though it looks good, I will not use them.

(a previous life was spent investigating storefront fraud on major sales websites, so I may be more conservative than most)

Harry

[immiketoo]

That would be a hard pass from me as well.  I can find all of those from makers I know and trust for the same or better prices.  

Much of that looks like rebranded Chinese stuff from Kevin Lee.

[Dunluce]

I would be surprised if they were fraudulent as the way I came across them was in the recent edition of 'Waxing the Thread' magazine and that they have an active Facebook site. That said the website does not fill me with confidence. Even if it is rebranded (quality) Chinese stuff I wouldn't mind as sometimes the cheaper price doesn't look so cheap once the import tax is added.

[bermudahwin]

Please, Black Mountains Leather, PM me, and let me be happy, until then

Harry says 

Kind of a rant warning.

 

I AM MAKING NO ACCUSATIONS AGAINST ANYONE.

As a business owner I am responsible to know the source of anything I buy, and (within parameters) the details and locations of my customers. This is a worldwide requirement to prevent money laundering activities.

I have to become COMFORTABLE that anyone with whom we trade is sound, I do not have to prove or verify this, just be able to gain comfort.

Therefore if all I can find is a website that does not work properly, with absolutely no details as to the address of the business, nor the owners, and the contact is purely an email address, I cannot gain comfort.

Others may be able to, but I cannot.

As I said above "a previous life was spent investigating storefront fraud on major sales websites, so I may be more conservative than most". I also regulated Insurance companies that sometimes did not stand up to scrutiny and ! dealt with cross border financial compliance trying to stop people who were avoiding taxes or funding terrorism so I know it is harder fo me to gain comfort than others.

Ever wondered why so  many ebay, Amazon, Wish, etc storefronts use the same photographs and prices for the same items? They may be fine, but there MAY BE a scam going on. If a holding co in the far east sells through one store it may breach tax limits and have to pay taxes, but if 10 employees set up stores and sells 1/10th of the owners total in the EU, none of them will breach a taxation limit, whereas the owner would have... who is paying the taxes? None of them. That is money fraud.

NOW FOR THE KICKER

If I trade with them and have a resonable suspicion that this is going on, I am then facilitating financial crime!

Which is why I find it harder to get comfortable with faceless companies.

Sorry for the rant, but good websites have a contact address and phone number, its not much to ask.

[immiketoo]

34 minutes ago, Dunluce said:

I would be surprised if they were fraudulent as the way I came across them was in the recent edition of 'Waxing the Thread' magazine and that they have an active Facebook site. That said the website does not fill me with confidence. Even if it is rebranded (quality) Chinese stuff I wouldn't mind as sometimes the cheaper price doesn't look so cheap once the import tax is added.

I'm not suggesting they are fraudulent, just that there are many other vendors with established customer service 

[bermudahwin]

Just now, immiketoo said:

I'm not suggesting they are fraudulent, just that there are many other vendors with established customer service 

Yeah, thats what I meant

[Dunluce]

Hmmm, apologies if it was felt that I implied something. I didn’t mean to.

[bermudahwin]

Nah, been in financial regulation tooooo long. so I got touchy. sorry. H

Edited December 6, 2018 by hwinbermuda

[JazzBass]

Sound advice, @hwinbermuda - a physical address and a contact number of a real person is most certainly NOT too much to ask.

[stormcrow]

As far as I know they are UK based as I've probably ordered from them about 5/6 times now and they have always delivered to me in UK in about 2 days.

I've mainly been ordering Yue Fung threads but I recently ordered their brass utility knife with D2 steel blade and I am extremely happy with it, I prefer it to my Indispensable knife much more comfortable in my hand and the blade is excellent quality too way better than the Tina blades I have for my Indispensable.

[stormcrow]

 

I've just checked their now closed Etsy shop and according to that they are based in Abergavenny, Wales

[bermudahwin]

Thanks Stormcrow,

All of the IT triggers point to their domain providers in Canada.

From my understanding of UK sales sites, they seem to be lacking in basic details.

It's a shame as it would be great to have more suppliers in the UK.

If you have a receipt with contact details please pm me as I like the look of one of the tools.

Thank you

Harry

[Matt S]

The whois lookup appears that the domain is registered to a Canadian company that sells domains. However the Black Mountains are indeed in south Wales. There is very little context info on this page or their Fakebook page so who knows?

I'm leaning towards a genuine Welsh leatherworker who wants to offset the cost of their hobby by doing a little reselling.

As to the tools they look like the higher end of Chinese tools. Not knocking on their quality per se but I'd like to at least know the origin of a tool for which I'd hypothetically forking out 80 of my hard-earned pounds.

[bermudahwin]

Keen to know a bit about the edge planes, and how they hold sharpness.

H

Edited December 7, 2018 by hwinbermuda

[stormcrow]

On 07/12/2018 at 6:28 AM, hwinbermuda said:

Thanks Stormcrow,

All of the IT triggers point to their domain providers in Canada.

From my understanding of UK sales sites, they seem to be lacking in basic details.

It's a shame as it would be great to have more suppliers in the UK.

If you have a receipt with contact details please pm me as I like the look of one of the tools.

Thank you

Harry

Sorry I’ve checked but I don’t have any receipts .

[Instinctive]

Black Mountain is owned by Devilhide Leather (Instagram @devilhide_leather).

He is using Shopify for the tools sales site. Shopify is a Canadian company which would explain the Canadian IP trail.

I donlt know anything about the quality of what he sells on this site and from a marketing perspective, always good to have more comprehensive information about your company including a physical address and phone number.

 

Edited December 9, 2018 by Instinctive

[bermudahwin]

Thank you both.

Harry

[devilhide]

Hello everybody,

Its Argo here and i’m one half of black mountain leather. My wife is the other, we started bmlc as i was struggling to get many of the things i needed/wanted  inside the u.k. 

As you can see i have my own leather work started working with leather around 2011 and still learning with every piece i make. Luckily i seem to have found a good following for my work and get to improve with every piece i make. My first love of leather work was the tooling aspect but find myself pushing to make more complicated interiors on wallets. 

We are fairly new company only started trading this year. I personally have worked in retail all my life and still do in the cycling industry. I work with tool makers from around the world bringing in affordable tools that i would be happy with. I also like to work closely on design aspects when i can and have a lot of input on materials used. We ship worldwide but really did not expect to get many orders from outside the u.k. as this was started to help support the leathercraft community in the u.k. obviously not complaining.

I am currently very tired from moving home and my other half has just broken her wrist so struggling a little with our two little girls. Feel free to ask any questions i might have missed. 

 

Thank you all cor your support 

Argo 

[bermudahwin]

Thank you Argo,

I will pm you later.

Harry

[devilhide]

Another note. Our shop really runs along side our instagram site @blackmountainsleather we will aim to improve the web page to better support people finding from outside instagram. 

 

Argo 

[Dunluce]

Well,decilhide that seems to clear up my original question. It’s good to see someone selling these tools in the UK. I have me eye on one or two things and will be in touch soon.

[devilhide]

1 hour ago, Dunluce said:

Well,decilhide that seems to clear up my original question. It’s good to see someone selling these tools in the UK. I have me eye on one or two things and will be in touch soon.

[devilhide]

1 hour ago, Dunluce said:

Well,decilhide that seems to clear up my original question. It’s good to see someone selling these tools in the UK. I have me eye on one or two things and will be in touch soon.

We are looking to update the shop with more info and our story to make things more clear  

 

Argo