Cowhide colours verses value
Have you ever wondered why certain cowhide rugs are listed at higher prices than other cowhide rugs?
Why some cowhide business's appear to sell cowhides for less than other cowhide business's?
I spend a lot of my time carefully choosing stock for our shop, cowhide rugs are most often sold by category of colour and pattern.
Why is this?
Only 10% of the cattle that are slaughtered for the meat industry have their hides utilized for tanneries to make into different types of leather goods. Think about that, only 10%, the remainder go to the landfill.
Out of that 10% only 3% of those hides are cowhides are with wonderful patterns and colours, the remaining 7% are solid brown shades, and blacks.
Why is this you may ask?
Its because cattle bred to have a large valuable meat carcass have typically been breeds like Angus (solid brown and solid black), and cattle breeds suited to Brazils climate and vegetation (photo above) so these sell for higher prices or are more abundant at auction so there are more farmers breeding these types hence more of these types ending up at tanneries for processing. These colours are 70% of available cowhide rugs.
This makes it even more tricky for us to purchase cowhides that stand out from the crowd, because they just aren't readily available. When they are available they come at a very high cost.
On top of all of that, once I find hides with gorgeous colours and order them, I won't know the quality of the hide until its arrived.
Most of my return customers are very aware that I am very open and honest when it comes time to review each product as its arrives, and gets inventoried. Some hides are really stiff, thin, have holes in, poor patch repairs or multiple natural scrapes and marks. So I may have beautiful patterns and colours but the quality of the hair and/or hide is low and I mark them down in price. Pretty disappointing as I get pretty pumped when new orders arrive.
When I do discover a 'perfect' hide I am pretty pumped about it, but having said that even the natural defects on hides add to its authenticity, its history and character which make it a very special thing indeed. I will always try to add as much information to our product listings as possible.
Well, that's all for today. I should get busy packing orders to get them off to their new homes tomorrow.