Thoughts on Pigskin / pig leather

[TartuWolf]

Had an idea recently to make a thread about Pigskin / pig leather.
Would like to hear your thoughts about it.
It seems to be mainly used as lining for boots as far as I have seen it.
I have used it my leather working. The wallets themselves did not turn out too well due to my mistakes and bad design. But I did like the pigskin quite a lot. The one I have is natural veg tan, very thin with very tight grain and a beautiful smooth/finished suede side. Seems quite robust as well. Very stiff for such thickness. Springy. Perfect for slim wallets I would say.
Here are some pictures of the leather I have, some wallets I made and one wallet that I made for my friend (not proud of it..) that has been using for about a year to see how it ages/patinas.

 

[ton312]

Pigs taste better than they look imo. Your wallet looks nice though and the color is great. For anything larger it’s an absolute no for me. The pock marked hide just doesn’t appeal to me at all. Did you sand your skins down to eliminate the pronounced pores?

 

[jadub]

I think it was late 80s, early nineties it showed up in jackets. It was a good thought. I have no idea what percent of hides get used from the pig meat industry. Anything it can be successfully used for is a good thing imo. I don’t think jacket leather is a successful use for it however. As tony said. The pronounced pores aren’t too appealing and when I’ve seen the leather used it’s always very thin as in your example. Thin leather in my mind is for dressier jackets not workwear. The large pores work against the dressy concept. Nice projects though. Do you find the leather to be tough as nails? It looks like the year old wallet still has its original shape. The only change looks to be some darkening, unless that’s the starting color of the hide.

 

[Monitor]

 

[ton312]

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[Craig from Craigslist]

Yeah it honestly looks too close to human skin for me. If you like it then don’t let me stop you from using it but I haven’t heard of pigskin having specific qualities that couldn’t be gotten from other hides.

 

[AeroFan_07]

Your wallets look nice. Good work on those.

I have no other room in my heart to love or like any form of Pigskin, however.

 

[Edward]

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KLATU BARADA....er..... necktie?

Hogskin was, at a time, in use for gloves. Workgloves, I think, mostly, but also afaik more affordable dressgloves. I have a brown, roughout leather Stetson eight panel cap somewhere from about ten years ago that is hogskin. Works really well for that.

 

[Nacho]

I like hogs because I can cook them low n slow. Some of the best BBQs around.

But I don’t know about their hide though. Them pores creep me out a little.

Your wallet looks solid though. Some good saddle stitching right there.

 

[Edward]

Had an idea recently to make a thread about Pigskin / pig leather.
Would like to hear your thoughts about it.
It seems to be mainly used as lining for boots as far as I have seen it.
I have used it my leather working. The wallets themselves did not turn out too well due to my mistakes and bad design. But I did like the pigskin quite a lot. The one I have is natural veg tan, very thin with very tight grain and a beautiful smooth/finished suede side. Seems quite robust as well. Very stiff for such thickness. Springy. Perfect for slim wallets I would say.
Here are some pictures of the leather I have, some wallets I made and one wallet that I made for my friend (not proud of it..) that has been using for about a year to see how it ages/patinas.
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Wallets look great. That second one particularly is a nice design.

 

[Canuck Panda]

Most gloves found in hardware stores uses pigskins. They're ok for the money. Fancier Ace hardware stores may carry the expensive deerskin ones.

But for jackets I am not rushing to buy it:

 

[Marc mndt]

I'd definitely wear jackets like these. But that's because they're vintage and cool design, not because they're pigskin.

 

[Guppy]

The pig leather I've seen has had huge pores that didn't look attractive, or else pebble grain like a football. But that stuff you used for the wallet looks really nice. Good grain and color.

 

[TartuWolf]

Did you sand your skins down to eliminate the pronounced pores?

Nope, that's how they came. It does puzzle me that some of the stuff that I've seen from pigskin has those very pronounced hair holes, while the leather I have and use only really has them on the flesh/suede side. Grain side you can barely tell it's pigskin. Maybe sanded from the factory/tannery?

Do you find the leather to be tough as nails? It looks like the year old wallet still has its original shape. The only change looks to be some darkening, unless that’s the starting color of the hide.

I found the leather to be surprisingly tough for it's thickness. Very very tight grain and very springy. Holds shape very well yeah. I did oil it a few times so it went slightly more yellowish. But in that 1 year old wallet you can see a lot of very lovely patina. I plan to make another wallet for myself out of it and wear it daily for a year. Maybe then I can post more photos to this thread for reference.

Yeah it honestly looks too close to human skin for me.

What makes it look closer to human skin than any other type of natural veg tan leather?

The pig leather I've seen has had huge pores that didn't look attractive

Same here I would say. The stuff that Canuck and Mark posted does not look good at all. But I wonder whether those are just rather extreme examples. The pigskin I have looks much more subtle and better. Might be sanded/corrected though...

 

[TartuWolf]

Thanks everyone for the positive feedback on the wallets / stitching
I have a few requests from friends to make some wallets for them, maybe that will inspire me to come back to this hobby a bit more.

Also a few more interesting related resources (wild boar leather instead of pigskin though..):

https://oakstreetbootmakers.com/trench-boot-dark-waxy-wild-boar-dainite-rubber-studded-sole
https://maverickleathercompany.com/product/drum-stuffed-boar-copper/

Also interesting quotes from here https://www.leather-dictionary.com/index.php/Pig_leather:
"Pig leather is ranked fourth in the world's total leather production, after cow, sheep and goat leather."

But yeah, seems really popular in gloves. Lot of cool photos and info in that page..

 

[tmitchell59]

 

[TartuWolf]

Recent wallet I made from hand dyed pigskin.
Thin and sleek. Feels tough and durable though.

 

[Dbtk44]

Recent wallet I made from hand dyed pigskin.
Thin and sleek. Feels tough and durable though.
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Excellent! You have some nice leatherworking skills!

As someone mentioned earlier in this thread, pigskin jackets were all over the malls in the late 80s to mid 90s, and most of it was low end, garbage pigskin. I remember taking one such jacket apart, to use the pigskin for several little projects....paper-thin, and suede on both sides, so it was pigskin "split".

GOOD quality pigskin is a totally different story. If I liked the style and color....I wouldn't hesitate a second wearing piggy!