What First Grade Actually Means

Every seller uses the word. Few explain it. Here's what it means and what it doesn't.

The grades

First grade. No sewn patches. No hair slippage. A full coat across the whole hide. This is the grade you want for a rug, a robe, or anything you'll live with.

Second grade. One or more sewn patches where a hole or thin spot was repaired, or areas where the hair has slipped and the skin shows through. Still a real hide, but it's been fixed.

Third grade. Multiple patches, visible slippage, rough edges. Sold cheaply for utility use.

Why so few make first grade

A hide comes off the animal with everything it went through. Fights, fences, insect damage, a thin coat if the animal was taken outside of winter. Most hides have something. Only a small share come through clean enough to sell whole.

The rest don't go to waste. They're cut for upholstery leather, where you only need the good sections. But a whole first-grade hide is uncommon, and that's why it costs what it costs. The tanning is the other half of the price, and we explain it in Why We Vegetable Tan.

What first grade doesn't mean

It doesn't mean uniform. A first-grade hide still has natural markings, color that varies across the hide, and often a healed scar or a brand. The coat bunches, curls, and lies matted in places, most often along the spine. None of that is a defect. It's what tells you this was an animal and not a manufactured product. The Hide Care page covers how to work out a matted spot in about a minute.

If you want something perfectly even, buy a synthetic. If you want the real thing, this is what the real thing looks like.

How to check

Flip the hide over. The suede side should be one continuous piece with no stitched seams. Run your hand across the coat against the grain. Hair should stay put. Look at the edges, which should be clean, not frayed.

Both of our hides are first grade. Frontier Reserve, with a coat up to seven inches. Frontier Select, with a thicker hide and a coat up to five. If either one arrives and isn't what we described, you have 14 days to send it back under our Return Policy.