Tan-brown Hermann Oak harness leather briefcase with a brass latch and natural edges, on white

Wagon Train Leather, Legal Pad

ByPeter Joeseph 'Briefcase Maker' Kalafatis
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The Habermas 2074, and the St. Louis tannery that made leather for the road west

The leather on this briefcase was first made to pull wagons. I find that funny every time I pick it up, because the people I build the Habermas for mostly carry paper.

Video: “Finished my American Made Harness Leather Briefcase. My Habermas Style,” Marcellino NY Briefcase Maker on YouTube, August 17, 2024.

St. Louis, 1881

The hide comes from the Hermann Oak tannery. Louis Charles Hermann incorporated the company in 1881 on North First Street, close to the Mississippi, where the tannery still stands. He set out to supply the local harness trade and the settlers heading west in wagon trains. In the same interview the company describes its vegetable tanning as slow and costly, using tree bark from quebracho and wattle, no salts, and about a thousand individual steps.

Harness leather is stuffed with fat. Weaver Leather’s listing says the russet shade of this leather varies with the amount of tallow stuffed into it, and that it ages to a rich patina. The same page lists reins and tack among its uses, plus dog collars and belts.

Nothing on that list mentions a briefcase.

The first leather I built with

Harness was one of the first leathers I ever made briefcases from. I took a new Hermann Oak side out of its box in August 2024 and set it beside an old test case I made from the same material roughly ten years earlier. The new side is pale and thick. The old case is dark, scratched, oiled and sun baked, and I painted part of it. I tested the handle on that case with heavy weights, and I put the figure at about 250 pounds. That’s my own claim and I haven’t had it independently checked.

Video: “Unpacking American Made Harness Leather Side from Hermann Oak,” Marcellino NY Briefcase Maker on YouTube, August 17, 2024.

The Habermas open from the front, showing a plain unlined interior in the same tan harness leather

English bridle leather takes years to show age. Harness doesn’t wait. Handle it, carry it into the sun, and it starts to darken, and it scratches. I like that. A scratch on harness leather becomes part of the surface, and I’ve written elsewhere about how a bridle briefcase will look in a hundred years, which is a slower, quieter version of the same thing.

A latch for lawyers

A solid brass Marcellino latch on a tan harness leather flap, with a small leather logo tab above it

The brass latch on the flap is mine. I designed it years ago because lawyers kept asking for something that gave them the look of a traditional brass lock without making them fumble. A buckle makes you undo it all day. A lock is wonderful, but locks wear. The latch is solid brass and takes a beating. A leather loop keeps it from rattling when the case is empty, and the loop can come off, along with the chain, if you overpack.

I built a Habermas in black Sedgwick bridle for a university professor in 2021. The video of the front panel going on is mostly stitching and music.

Why there’s nothing inside

I almost never line harness leather. A rustic outside and a refined inside argue with each other, and suede on the inside of something that will be scratched and darkened and abused never worked for me. So I leave it open. The flesh side is smooth, you can wipe a spill away, and the whole case stays thin where a lining would add bulk.

I leave the edges natural on this one too, burnished, not painted. My understanding is that’s how the old makers did it, and paint eventually chips. It’s a claim from my own memory of the trade, so treat it as hearsay.

It’s heavy, and it’s meant to be

A tan harness leather shoulder strap coiled in a circle with brass hardware and a buckle

I’d estimate ten to twenty years of good use out of this briefcase. That’s my estimate, and the key words are “good use.” A case on a shelf proves nothing.

The Habermas 2074 measures 16 by 12 by 4, two sections of 2 inches each, with rings on top for the strap and a drop of 20 inches. The logo goes wherever the leather looks best.

My last word: I think the right owner is a trial lawyer or anyone else who opens and closes a case forty times before lunch and wants it to look more used on the day it’s fifteen than on the day it’s new. A person who wants a briefcase to stay pristine should buy the English bridle. This one is for the person who’d like the evidence on the leather.

The live listing on the site is the 2075, the sister style, and the button at the top leads there.

Sources

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