What our condition grade means
Every listing on this site carries a condition grade. Right now every jacket on the rail carries the same one, Very Good, and that is not an accident. It is the only grade we list at.
This page explains what that means in practice, and what it does not mean.
Why a grade exists at all
These jackets have been worn before. Some of them for decades. Buying second hand leather means accepting that a garment has a history, and the honest thing is to tell you what that history looks like before you spend anything, rather than after it arrives.
A grade is shorthand. It is not a substitute for looking at the photographs, and it is not a substitute for the measurements.
What Very Good means here
A jacket graded Very Good has been through the full process: sourced, cleaned, repaired where it needed repairing, and checked again before listing. To reach that grade it has to be:
- Structurally sound. No split seams, no tears, no holes, no damage to the leather itself.
- Fully functional. Zips run. Poppers pop. Buckles fasten. If hardware was broken, it was replaced before the jacket went up.
- Sound in the lining. No rips, no shredded sleeves. Torn linings get replaced rather than listed.
- Clean. Professionally cleaned and conditioned. It will not smell of someone else's wardrobe.
What Very Good does not mean
It does not mean new, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. A jacket at this grade will normally show:
- Creasing at the elbows, the cuffs and across the back, where the leather has moulded to whoever wore it
- Softening and shine on the high-wear areas, particularly the sleeves and the collar
- Light surface marks and rubbing on the finish
- Some slackening in ribbed cuffs, hems and collars, which is normal on any knit that is decades old
None of that is damage. It is the reason to buy an old leather jacket rather than a new one. That character cannot be manufactured, and a jacket that has already done its creasing will never crease badly again.
What happens to jackets that do not make the grade
They do not go on the rail. If a fault cannot be put right to a standard we would accept ourselves, the jacket is not listed. That is why every grade on the site currently reads the same.
Judge the photographs, not just the grade
Every jacket is photographed under flat light: the front and the back at minimum, with close-ups of the collar, the lining and any detail worth seeing. Nothing is styled to hide wear, and no mark, crease or scuff is edited out. The main photograph is cut out onto a plain background and squared up in the frame, so that the jacket itself is what you are looking at. The leather is not retouched: the creasing, the shine and the marks you can see are the ones the jacket has. If something about a particular jacket concerns you, look closely at the photographs first, then message us and we will tell you plainly what we can see in front of us.
Condition is only half the question. The other half is whether it will fit, and since every jacket here is a single garment in a single size, that is worth getting right first time. Our guide to measuring a leather jacket explains exactly how each measurement on the listing is taken.