How Can I Tell if Capeskin is Genuine?

Capeskin is a high quality leather which feels much better than regular lambskin and you will notice that as soon as you handle it. It has several characteristics in the grain that can be identified. It has a fine grain with small pore like bumps some concentrated in various areas of the skin and other bigger ones scattered all around. There may be also faint lines which resemble a beehive pattern. There are also larger bumps that blend together with the smaller ones and create a rugged texture. Besides the grain texture there are also wrinkles and some straight line “bubble” marks called ribbiness that run across the skins parallel to the ribs. The amount, density and intensity of these marks probably depends on the age of the animal as they are skin growth marks (stretch marks).

The grainy texture can be imitated by tanneries by certain methods they apply during tanning of various lambskin and the product of that is marketed as “Shrunken Lambskin” or “Preshrunk Washed Lamb”. However, tanneries can fake only the texture and not the straight “bubble” marks (ribbiness). The skin shown below is an example of Shrunken Lambskin. As you can see the ribbiness is missing.

Thickness, and softness of the leather are irrelevant because they always depend on the tanning method and can be adjusted at the tannery. The weight is similar to lambskin.

In the below photos you can see the ribbiness which is unique to genuine capeskin jackets. These bubble marks are difficult to see in vintage photos because of the age and quality of the photos which are not as sharp as those taken with modern cameras and lenses. Yet, there are still some big size photos in which they are clearly visible. Our Victory Capeskin has all the characteristics described above and shown below.