Your latest cool purchase

[Ilkless]

Just put in an order for a handstitched leather satchel by a French craftsman I've been admiring for some time, and realised there wasn't a catch-all thread for cool purchases.

It will be in thick vegetable-tanned hazelnut-coloured leather from a small French tannery, with fasteners made in Germany and cast brass buckles made in France.

It will have 2 adjustable fasteners like this signature design of his

But in the size of a messenger bag (with removable pen and phone pockets):

And it will be gorgeous. That's all I wanted to share.

 

[Doodski]

Just put in an order for a handstitched leather satchel by a French craftsman I've been admiring for some time, and realised there wasn't a catch-all thread for cool purchases.

It will be in thick vegetable-tanned hazelnut-coloured leather from a small French tannery, with fasteners made in Germany and cast brass buckles made in France.

It will have 2 adjustable fasteners like this signature design of his

View attachment 356672
But in the size of a messenger bag (with removable pen and phone pockets):

View attachment 356673

And it will be gorgeous. That's all I wanted to share.

I bought a expensive nice black leather notebook/PC and file folder messenger bag sized piece of gear. It fits all my legal files as I have downsized and reduced the capacity requirements for my most important files. It has tabs for small padlocks too that I use to keep out prying eyeballs. It looks great and I am proud to carry it but.. but... it is nowhere near what you posted there in those images. That stuff is art. That is some serious looking gear.

 

[Jimbob54]

Just put in an order for a handstitched leather satchel by a French craftsman I've been admiring for some time, and realised there wasn't a catch-all thread for cool purchases.

It will be in thick vegetable-tanned hazelnut-coloured leather from a small French tannery, with fasteners made in Germany and cast brass buckles made in France.

It will have 2 adjustable fasteners like this signature design of his

View attachment 356672
But in the size of a messenger bag (with removable pen and phone pockets):

View attachment 356673

And it will be gorgeous. That's all I wanted to share.

Nice murse

 

[Ilkless]

I bought a expensive nice black leather notebook/PC and file folder messenger bag sized piece of gear. It fits all my legal files as I have downsized and reduced the capacity requirements for my most important files. It has tabs for small padlocks too that I use to keep out prying eyeballs. It looks great and I am proud to carry it but.. but... it is nowhere near what you posted there in those images. That stuff is art. That is some serious looking gear.

This will mostly be for carrying small items when I'm outside on weekends and holidays. My work requires me to bring a laptop around and a leather satchel that big in really good thick hide would be ridiculously heavy.

That said I did see a colleague use an iPad Mini for work quite effortlessly... So I might just swap out my trusty Cordura tote and laptop for something more compact and rustic

Nice murse

To be honest I just needed something to fit an umbrella, a light cotton jacket for colder air-conditioning/drizzles, pen, notebook, earphones, medication and a water bottle. But with something this nicely made I'll probably end up finding more things to cram inside and as much reason to use it as i can

 

[Doodski]

I never see murses or any sort of accessory bags like those works of art that you posted images about where I live in Canada. Nobody goes to the effort to look that good and have such quality accessories.

 

[DSJR]

Cool items?

I did buy a load of food to go in the freezer this week (over 60's get 10% off on a Tuesday...). Well, it's 'cool' ain't it - so chilled it's frozen

I'll get me coat. As you were fellas, as you were...

 

[LTig]

Got a foldable cover for my new smart phone made of real leather.

 

[Ilkless]

I never see murses or any sort of accessory bags like those works of art that you posted images about where I live in Canada. Nobody goes to the effort to look that good and have such quality accessories.

I'm getting this direct from a craftsman in the countryside, who gets raw materials from niche artisanal suppliers local(ish) to him. His bags start from ~$400 up, which I feel is reasonable considering he wet moulds pieces of leather and them stitches them together with just needle and thread. And not much more than the "high street" name brands, at least over here.

We have very good local crafters too, but raw materials cost more and negates any shipping and labour cost advantage. Plus the local market is too small for crafters to gain much experience in crafting leather goods larger than wallets or watch straps.

 

[Doodski]

I'm getting this direct from a craftsman in the countryside, who gets raw materials from niche artisanal suppliers local(ish) to him. His bags start from ~$400 up, which I feel is reasonable considering he wet moulds pieces of leather and them stitches them together with just needle and thread. And not much more than the "high street" name brands, at least over here.

We have very good local crafters too, but raw materials cost more and negates any shipping and labour cost advantage. Plus the local market is too small for crafters to gain much experience in crafting leather goods larger than wallets or watch straps.

IC... Well the lines, stitching and such are perfect from what I can see in the images. I have seen some sooper nice women's purses, clutches and handbags etc that are like your leather items but they also included hand painted beautiful birds in amazing vivid colors with airbrushed accents all over the bags. It was difficult to peel the eyes away from looking at them and the amount of detail required several minutes to really look at them and reflect about what all of that means. We are talking about thousands of dollars+ for a woman's accessory bag. Do they have leather items with accents and painted on artwork too that is suitable as a mans' accessory?

 

[mhardy6647]

cool.
thing.
hmm...
drawin' a blank, I am.

 

[Doodski]

cool.
thing.
hmm...
drawin' a blank, I am.

It's all about the artisanship, craftsmanship, trendy accessory, image, old school thinking about owning quality gear that lasts a lifetime and in the end is maybe less expensive than buying several cheapO bags over a lifetime and never having anything nice while doing that. I dig that and have been known in the past to buy clothing that is high priced, all exotic materials like spider silk, expensive linen shirts etc or similar because it attracted the kind of people that I wanted to associate with and be around.
I don't carry a murse or a bag unless I have business for that day and need my documents and such but I can see how some have a need for that. As well my nice new wonderful perfect Samsung Galaxy S23 cel tel has a micro abrasion on the display that can be seen at an angle viewpoint and that's from the synthetic stitching in my front pocket of the pants. So yes that leather cel tel folding accessory is right in line for me atm. I'm going to go out on a limb and think you would be very attracted to a fine quality pocket magnifier made from compound lenses that is the finest grade coated optics and has a fantastic field of view with a focus range for viewing to die for so you could look at bugs and other biological stuff when out and about in the field? Does that attract you and make you see how a simple leather bag could be so valuable?

 

[mhardy6647]

You misread my post @Doodski My apologies!
I don't buy many things any more, and very few subjectively cool things.

That said (ahem). I do like optical things. My son buys most of them for me, though.
Most recent cool optical thing he got me was a 35 mm f/1.8 Nikkor lens this past Christmas.
I have been known to buy him cool optical things, but haven't done so lately.

I also do like to buy Mrs. H cool optical things for birding... but haven't done so very recently.
She's pretty well equipped.

 

[Doodski]

You misread my post @Doodski My apologies!
I don't buy many things any more, and very few subjectively cool things.

That said (ahem). I do like optical things. My son buys most of them for me, though.
Most recent cool optical thing he got me was a 35 mm f/1.8 Nikkor lens this past Christmas.
I have been known to buy him cool optical things, but haven't done so lately.

I also do like to buy Mrs. H cool optical things for birding... but haven't done so very recently.
She's pretty well equipped.

I had a suspicion you like really good optics...LoL. Your entire family is pro optics stuff and so am I. I love good optics. Unfortunately my rare and expensive old threaded for disassembly alloy hand held magnifier exactly as explained to you in the previous post went AWOL and I can't find anything like it and I've looked for stuff up into the ~$350 price range for hand held magnifiers. I Google searched and everything was single lens rubbish non coated stuff with a yucky plastic frame. So I am magnifierless and miss looking at whatever came across my path that was small and interesting. Sigh*

 

[LTig]

Unfortunately my rare and expensive old threaded for disassembly alloy hand held magnifier exactly as explained to you in the previous post went AWOL and I can't find anything like it and I've looked for stuff up into the ~$350 price range for hand held magnifiers. I Google searched and everything was single lens rubbish non coated stuff with a yucky plastic frame. So I am magnifierless and miss looking at whatever came across my path that was small and interesting. Sigh*

What about using an app like the Swiss Army Knife for Android? Its magnifier is really good.

 

[terryforsythe]

Raspberry Pi 5 and MCHstreamer kit.

 

[Doodski]

What about using an app like the Swiss Army Knife for Android? Its magnifier is really good.

I've been spoiled with the best handheld pocketable magnifier system available for a reasonably expensive price. The resolution, color accuracy, depth of field, and overall awesomeness of anything put under it was impressive. I used it for decades for electronics PCB inspections and I solved many a issue by having it's amazing abilities as a arrow in my quiver and a club in my golf bag. It had flux poured over it, acid splashed on it, was accidentally dropped a couple of times and was a go-to resource for my workmates who needed to see real fine detail when working flat packs and whatever else was needing a good look at. I simply unscrewed the alloy frame into it's parts like a expensive camera lens assembly does, removed the multiple compound assembly lenses and cleaned it all in ammonia, then isopropyl and then rinsed it in methyl hydrate and polished and reassembled it and it was good to go every time. I used magnifier tools with video scopes, USB scopes and a expensive stereo video microscope that I had @ my work station/bench when a QC/QA/service tech servicing downhole tools The end of all that is the magnifier that went AWOL was the best of the best. It could get into tight places at awkward angles and see in and under and beside etc and a cel tel can't do that sort of various viewing angles and adjustable accurate focusing and depth of field. If I can find as source of magnifiers of that quality I will spend upward of CDN $350 for a proper device. Otherwise maybe a old huge early 1980s or late 1970s video camera with saticon or nuvicon tubes in it will have proper glass lenses and be compound and a alloy frame with threaded assembly. Thanks for the suggestion I will experiment with using the Android software on my new Samsung Galaxy S23 cel tel and check it out with bugs and tiny stuff to test drive it.

 

[G|force]

You misread my post @Doodski My apologies!
I don't buy many things any more, and very few subjectively cool things.

That said (ahem). I do like optical things. My son buys most of them for me, though.
Most recent cool optical thing he got me was a 35 mm f/1.8 Nikkor lens this past Christmas.
I have been known to buy him cool optical things, but haven't done so lately.

I also do like to buy Mrs. H cool optical things for birding... but haven't done so very recently.
She's pretty well equipped.

I do adore fast lenses of any focal length, any brand and vintage. Yumm!

 

[617]

Just put in an order for a handstitched leather satchel by a French craftsman I've been admiring for some time, and realised there wasn't a catch-all thread for cool purchases.

It will be in thick vegetable-tanned hazelnut-coloured leather from a small French tannery, with fasteners made in Germany and cast brass buckles made in France.

It will have 2 adjustable fasteners like this signature design of his

View attachment 356672
But in the size of a messenger bag (with removable pen and phone pockets):

View attachment 356673

And it will be gorgeous. That's all I wanted to share.

There's a japanese company called herz that makes similar bags, many many different shapes. Herz-bag.jp, very nice stuff.

 

[617]

I buy a lot of fragrance, it's my current major vice, I just got a sample of this and I'm loving it. Suitable for any guy in my opinion, and many women would love it:

Quite cheap too.

 

[Timcognito]