I have a pair of Lama boots.......
Here is the cunundrum.
Most leather used in North America, ...and there is a shortage due to leather car interiors....is tanned in China.
There is a hide storage facility in Los Angeles that loads floating tanneries made from old Oil Tankers. They are loaded full of hides and tanned on their way to China. When they get close to port, the pickled and processed hides are drained, some are not quite finished, but are considered done. Those thousands of hides that need another week in tanning brine are off loaded with the rest.
These hundreds of thousands of leather hides are sold to Chinese factories..The left over hides are loaded back on, and the ship sets sail back to North America.
The used up thousands of gallons of toxic brine is dumped into the sea....But that is another topic.
When the floating tannery is back in L.A....The surplus processed hides are sold at a discounted rate back here to various companies....This shipments inferior quality hides are mixed in with the decent quality, making it into the "Supeior Quality" North American Market.
For example.....Anyone who has owned a pair of Red Wing ,or Ariat boots over a decade ago, probably still has them....Yet if you bought that same product, a few years ago...You most likely have noticed that the surface of the hide, has flaked away, and cracked.
This is the tanning solution penetrating the softer back of the hide, and not tanning the "Hair" or finshed side of the hide due to subceutaneus membrane that makes up the leather...The surface is just harder and requires more time....It also isn't washed right ,to rinse away the toxic alkalies...There is another problem with this...You are wearing tanned leather next to your skin ,that has high concentrations of tanning solutions..
My point is.....Inferior Chinese leather still makes its way, into the So-called Superior Quality North American Market.