I'm also skittish about buying through aliexpress.com. Returns to China seem like they could be a pain.
That leather looks very nice indeed and will just get nicer. Congrats.After wearing around the house all day, every day, since it's arrival, the grain is starting to pop:
Think I should spring for some vintage bone backing buttons and replace the cheap clear plastic ones?
Just curious did you buy any leather jackets from aliexpress? Could you please provide a link or two? Thanks!Just thought I'd respond to this. I've bought a few things now through Aliexpress and cant say enough good things about it.
The business model is great, from what I understand the money you pay for the items isn't actually released to the individual merchant until you acknowledge they have arrived and are happy with it by clicking on a link you receive on your order confirmation thus, customer service is amazing and the products have been exactly as described.
I've seen vintage photos of A-1s with buttons instead of snaps at the bottom, so I just made an assumption. I don't know if snaps are considered correct or incorrect. Seems like all repros today have snaps.
I'm leaning toward capeskin -- bn1966's quote steered me in that direction.
Those I've seen who offer a capeskin A-1 are (in order of ascending price):
The Good Wear looks like the very best A-1 reproduction available, but it and the Eastman are way beyond my budget.
- AVI LTHR ($263.20) http://www.avilthr.com/webshop/
- Headwind ($525) http://www.headwindmfg.com/jackets.html
- Eastman (£749.99) http://www.eastmanleather.com/type-contract-31-800p-p-162.html
- Good Wear ($1299): http://www.goodwearleather.com/pages/type_a1.html
The Headwind looks nice, but it's double the price of the AVI LTHR. To my eye, the Headwind doesn't seem much different to justify the extra cost.
That leaves the AVI LTHR. Capeskin, horn buttons and member Brettafett gave a solid review of the construction of his AVI A-2 here. The AVI knits will have a seam and the sleeves are two rather than three-piece construction. But I can overlook that. If the backing buttons are cheap or inaccurate, they can be swapped out. Everything else looks like an pretty accurate representation of an A-1 to me (unless I'm missing something). It's too bad AVI doesn't insert a label that more closely resembles an original. But I'd probably forget about that after a short time. Free shipping and free returns.
Now, seal brown or that lighter brown?
Thinking of pulling the trigger on an AVI LTHR A-1. Any updates almost a year on? Still seems like a good deal to me.
Peace
I emailed them Thursday evening but haven't heard anything yet. I'm trying to find out if they have the new russet A-2 ready to go.Thinking of pulling the trigger on an AVI LTHR A-1. Any updates almost a year on? Still seems like a good deal to me.
Peace