Pocket money crosszip adventure

[AbbaDatDeHat]

^^^that does it Barnabus, i have a no-name crosszip thats hittin the showers too.
You’ve inspired!!
Be well. Bowen

 

[Monitor]

Similar to my favorite no name. Best $10 I've spent on a jacket.

 

[Doctor Damage]

Barnabus... looks like a great score, well done! I agree the grain/surface looks extremely characterful and I like how the belt buckle isn't as big as a pie plate like Schotts.

 

[ton312]

21oz Unbrandeds!

Jacket looks perfect man. Fit is dead on. I love these jeans as well. They are far more reasonably priced over the IH equivalent and wear like a tank. I have three pair. One pair of IH and that should be all the leg jackets I need for quite some time.

 

[Peacoat]

That's graining out nicely. Looks like horsehide. I have never had much luck with my cow graining out like that, although my Vanson competition weight cowhide comes close.

 

[Edward]

Nice find. A lot of those old jackets from back in the 70s and 80s can be surprisingly good; the eighties was the last hurrah of the British motorcycle leather industry, before it all went to Indian and Pakistan, and the leather market came more about fashion than motorcycling (mirroring the death of the British motorcycle industry itself during the 70s). Jackets like this would have sold for about £75 in the late 80s, and were still considered serious motorcycle wear, this all long before CE spec armour came around as a standard, when even the power ranger gear had just a bit of extra leather panelling and padding for protection.

Looks like it's coming up well. I would guess Eighties is accurate for the date, both for a combination of the really chunky hardwear (that started to come in around the late seventies / into the eighties), and the very American look to it (British jackets of the 70s much more commonly had side-buckles instead of a front belt).

Back in about 1989 I bought one like this:

and wore it for actual years while I was a student (I've never been a biker). I bought it in Pettycoat Lane.

That takes me back - my parents tried to buy me a jacket like that for my 21st in 1995; I'd previously had a Perfecto style (wish I could remember the brand - pretty sure it wasn't a Schott, but the label - white print on black leather - said both "Naked Cowhide" and "Made in New York City" I do recall) from I was sixteen, but grew out of it by nineteen. I adored that jacket.... This other one, bless 'em, they tried - it was a "real" "biker jacket" and the quality was there, but the look.... no, definitely not me. It had crazy big padding, made me look twice my size, black zips, stretch panels (yuck), and even a couple of spots of velcro. Yuck, yuck, yuck! Ha. It went back unworn, and I ended up eventually with my first leather jacket that was of a Highwayman type style....

The area around Petticoat Lane (it was renamed Middlesex Street in the 60s to try and get away from the original connotations of the name,. but it's never stuck) still has a lot of leather places, mostly wholesalers dealing in fashion leather imports from India / Pakistan / Bangladesh. I don't see much of this sort of thing any more, but then I guess it's the case that motorcycling has dropped out of the mainstream in the UK to the point where only really specialist companies much cater to it now, rather than it being a run of the mill thing. Long gone are the days when the motorcycle represented cheap, honest transport for the working man, many of whom could have only dreamed of affording a car.

 

[barnabus]

Nice find. A lot of those old jackets from back in the 70s and 80s can be surprisingly good; the eighties was the last hurrah of the British motorcycle leather industry, before it all went to Indian and Pakistan,

This jacket is actually labelled as made in Pakistan, which unfortunately means it probably had a personal part to play in the decline of the British leather industry. A shame, but no matter really for my purposes.

I've noticed a handful of missing zipper teeth on the hand warmer pockets (clearly not as heavy duty as they appeared!), so I might look to replace those at some point. And some corrosion on the eyelets of the belt too, but I have a few ideas about that as well.

In my mind's eye, there's a full refurbishment happening here, although that wasn't what I originally intended at all.

I'll keep you all posted on what I get up to, but it'll be slow going I'm afraid, as I'm both busy and lazy.

 

[Doctor Damage]

Long gone are the days when the motorcycle represented cheap, honest transport for the working man, many of whom could have only dreamed of affording a car.

Yeah, it's a big loss, really.

 

[Big J]

I'm kind of interested to know how companies making such great no-name jackets at great prices disappeared without a trace. Seems counterintuitive to me.
When I arrived in Japan there were juvenile biker gangs, but these days they're almost all gone. I read recently that one big city has only got one biker 'gang' and that's only got one member!
I think it's the cost. I only see bikers over 40, riding as a luxury hobby. Young people and the poor use scooters.

 

[Edward]

I'm kind of interested to know how companies making such great no-name jackets at great prices disappeared without a trace. Seems counterintuitive to me.

Combination of number of bikers on the road dropping off very significantly, fashion changing, the evolution of the fast/disposable fashion marketing approach (durability is not only the enemy of next season's sales, but irrelevant when you've convinced kids that it's all about buying a new outfit every week, cheap enough that often even laundering it is pointless), and the decimation of British manufacturing more generally from 1979 onwards.

When I arrived in Japan there were juvenile biker gangs, but these days they're almost all gone. I read recently that one big city has only got one biker 'gang' and that's only got one member!
I think it's the cost. I only see bikers over 40, riding as a luxury hobby. Young people and the poor use scooters.

Big part of it. Used bikes can be had affordably, but the insurance isn't cheap. Twist and go scooters can be cheaper to insure, there's no learning curve to riding one (it's easier than a pedal bike!).... Are electric scooters popular in Japan? In China, they're everywhere, because they're hardly regulated at all - you can walk into a store in Beijing and walk out with one for around GBP600 (that's about the price of a Pashley pedal bike in the UK), ride off with no helmet, no need for insurance, and only access to a plug socket for an hour or two now and then to charge it. And nobody in Beijing bats an eyelid if you want to get somewhere faster and so you ride it up the footpath, going the wrong way on the wrong side of the road.....

 

[Big J]

@Edward, yeah, I guess 'fashion' killed those guys.
I know that vehicle insurance in the U.K. is absurdly high. In Japan, it's not so bad at all, but there are a number of other regulations designed to squeeze every last penny out of vehicle owners, and as a result, sales are tanking.
Case in point, we moved into our new home 4 years ago and I bought my wife a new car. Insurance and gas are cheap but bi-annual tests of road worthiness can cost over a thousand dollars before any repair costs are included. There's a kind of road tax, and freeways are tolled to be more expensive than trains. All very 'eco-friendly' I guess, but before we could even buy a car, we had to show the dealer proof from a city hall inspection of our property that we have parking large enough for the car (and they tax us for that too).
All in all, it's kind of a scam. Add the fact that Japanese vehicles can cost up to 50% more here than they do in the rest of the world, and people just don't bother.
Toyota hasn't made any profit in Japan for years, and hasn't paid any tax.
When I was in China last year I was blown away by the volume of electric scooters on the roads. I think that's a good direction to go in.

 

[Doctor Damage]

... but before we could even buy a car, we had to show the dealer proof from a city hall inspection of our property that we have parking large enough for the car ...

I like that policy.

 

[Big J]

@DoctorDamage,
Yeah, I like that I have to prove I have parking, but hate that I have to pay tax on it every year when it's my land I already bought and paid tax on.

 

[barnabus]

Too hot today to actually wear the jacket, so I've taken the opportunity to smash out some leather treatment to feed this cowhide a little.

I bought some Renapur off Amazon and smashed a coat onto it using the supplied little sponge. It's hanging outside again in the sunshine as the treatment gradually soaks in. Initially it left a glossy sheen (which I really liked) but now that's reduced as it's soaked in. I might be buffing with a cloth afterwards to see if I can some of that back.

Funny how the Renapur is absorbed differently in different areas though. One side of the collar looks much as it did before, the other still looks freshly treated.

 

[barnabus]

Here we go: before I got started -

And the back of the collar, showing the differing absorption-

And then how the grain of the hide somehow seems even more blatant now -

 

[barnabus]

Now that I've messed about with the jacket over this weekend, and everything seems to have settled down again, the sleeve grain has gone bananas;