TooManyHatsOnlyOneHead
Call Me a Cab
- Messages
- 2,286
I definitely have jumped into this hobby head first. I won't deny it. Didn't even know what Aero, Himmel, Real McCoys, etc. were. Barely had heard about Schott. Didn't know the components on a jacket like a biswing back, cross zip, half belts, etc. Probably generally categorized them into black or brown and biker or fashion to be honest.
It's been fun/educational/mostly successful, but there were a couple mistakes along the way. No biggie. Somehow the closet currently has 21 leather jackets with another in the mail and that's with me selling a few as well and not counting several "starter" mall type jackets.
I definitely have some redundancy mostly because of fine tuning the fit or variables. But I also think I have a pretty good cross selection. I'm justifying it all in my head, but I'm really just fooling myself. Some of it I dismiss as I know I can pass some of the tighter fitting or less favorite jackets off to my two sons soon.
But to the point of it all. Been on a Cal mania lately. Bought 3 variations in short time span. Then this 4th became avail on Ebay. Again, it was slightly different, mostly in that it had a teacore base. So I hit buy and it showed up. Needed some love and luckily I've gotten to know the Cal shop pretty well, so I was confident they could bring it back to life.
Just guessing on the zips and all that, probably a 50s model. It's a little big on me and using my others as reference, I would say is probably a 46L. The 44s tend to fit me perfectly. But again, justifying in my head, it'll be my "too much pasta CAL" in case the others start getting too tight.
What I love about it is that when I grab it, I really feel like I'm holding on to history. If I'm being honest, it's probably just turning the corner of seeing it's apex, but just barely because it still has a lot of life to go. There's a few scratches and cuts, glorious patina and oxidation, random stitching here and there. One of the snaps is visible while the other 3 are hidden, don't know why. Almost has this Indian Ranger mixed hardware sort of thing. Probably spent 30 years plus on a bike getting exposed to sun, rain, bug guts, and whatever else it picked up in various dive bars (or at least that's the romantic image I'm giving it in my head).
But what really has me rethinking everything is that this jacket is what a leather jacket should be. I don't think me having 22 jackets and wearing each them 5 to 10 times a year will ever get any of those jackets to evolve to this point, even though many of them have the pedigree for it. And while I really really tried to capture it in photos, you really got to see this thing. It was lathered in Skidmores the get it alive again, so some of the brown base is hiding. And even though the jacket probably weighs 8lbs, it feels like nothing when I'm wearing it.
Lastly, wanted to give a shout out to Greg Field @Honeyman1935 for helping me source some missing hardware so I could fix a couple things on this bad boy. And of course the wonderful ladies at the Cal Leathers shop in Ventura for doing their usual magic, and her dad for giving me some tips on conditioning the leather.
Anyway, enjoy. I do think this is my goal with my jackets. To get them to evolve to this. So not saying END GAME by any means. It's too much fun to be on the hunt. But I do want to get my rotation down to maybe like 8-10ish. I figure 1 for each day of the week and maybe a few for random situations like a B3 for instance.
Anyway, thanks for reading.
It's been fun/educational/mostly successful, but there were a couple mistakes along the way. No biggie. Somehow the closet currently has 21 leather jackets with another in the mail and that's with me selling a few as well and not counting several "starter" mall type jackets.
I definitely have some redundancy mostly because of fine tuning the fit or variables. But I also think I have a pretty good cross selection. I'm justifying it all in my head, but I'm really just fooling myself. Some of it I dismiss as I know I can pass some of the tighter fitting or less favorite jackets off to my two sons soon.
But to the point of it all. Been on a Cal mania lately. Bought 3 variations in short time span. Then this 4th became avail on Ebay. Again, it was slightly different, mostly in that it had a teacore base. So I hit buy and it showed up. Needed some love and luckily I've gotten to know the Cal shop pretty well, so I was confident they could bring it back to life.
Just guessing on the zips and all that, probably a 50s model. It's a little big on me and using my others as reference, I would say is probably a 46L. The 44s tend to fit me perfectly. But again, justifying in my head, it'll be my "too much pasta CAL" in case the others start getting too tight.
What I love about it is that when I grab it, I really feel like I'm holding on to history. If I'm being honest, it's probably just turning the corner of seeing it's apex, but just barely because it still has a lot of life to go. There's a few scratches and cuts, glorious patina and oxidation, random stitching here and there. One of the snaps is visible while the other 3 are hidden, don't know why. Almost has this Indian Ranger mixed hardware sort of thing. Probably spent 30 years plus on a bike getting exposed to sun, rain, bug guts, and whatever else it picked up in various dive bars (or at least that's the romantic image I'm giving it in my head).
But what really has me rethinking everything is that this jacket is what a leather jacket should be. I don't think me having 22 jackets and wearing each them 5 to 10 times a year will ever get any of those jackets to evolve to this point, even though many of them have the pedigree for it. And while I really really tried to capture it in photos, you really got to see this thing. It was lathered in Skidmores the get it alive again, so some of the brown base is hiding. And even though the jacket probably weighs 8lbs, it feels like nothing when I'm wearing it.
Lastly, wanted to give a shout out to Greg Field @Honeyman1935 for helping me source some missing hardware so I could fix a couple things on this bad boy. And of course the wonderful ladies at the Cal Leathers shop in Ventura for doing their usual magic, and her dad for giving me some tips on conditioning the leather.
Anyway, enjoy. I do think this is my goal with my jackets. To get them to evolve to this. So not saying END GAME by any means. It's too much fun to be on the hunt. But I do want to get my rotation down to maybe like 8-10ish. I figure 1 for each day of the week and maybe a few for random situations like a B3 for instance.
Anyway, thanks for reading.
