Four materials, chosen for how they end, not how they start.
Every material here was selected for its behaviour over a decade. Below is what each one does, honestly, including the parts people find inconvenient.
A copper-zinc alloy that oxidises. Left bare it darkens where handled and stays bright where it is not, so within a year the object carries a record of its own use. The dark film is copper oxide and it is protective — a bare brass fitting outlasts a lacquered one, because lacquer eventually chips and traps moisture underneath. Ships unlacquered. A cloth and a little polish returns it to bright in under a minute if you prefer that.
Vegetable-tanned, from tanneries using bark rather than chromium. It arrives pale and stiff and is meant to. Within a month of daily carry it darkens, softens, and takes the shape it is being asked to hold. It marks easily in the first weeks — this is the material working, not failing. Edges are burnished with water and friction rather than sealed with a coating, so they can be re-burnished rather than replaced.
Quarter-sawn where the grain matters structurally, finished with oil rather than varnish. Oil sits in the wood instead of on top of it, so a scratch can be sanded and re-oiled locally rather than requiring the whole surface to be stripped. It deepens in colour with light and will not stay the shade it arrived.
Used only where a cutting edge, a point, or a load-bearing tolerance is required — brass will not hold a point and oak will not hold a hinge. Hardened where it needs to be. It is the one material here chosen for stability rather than for how it ages, and we use as little of it as the job allows.
What we do not use
No plated finishes, no chrome tanning, no lacquer, no plastic hardware, and no composite that cannot be repaired at the point it fails. Each of those would make something here cheaper or more stable. All of them make the object harder to keep once it is damaged, which is the wrong trade for objects meant to be handed on.
Sourcing
Brass and steel stock are bought from US mills. Leather comes from vegetable tanneries in the US and Italy. Oak is domestic. We are a small enough buyer that we cannot audit these supply chains ourselves, and we will not claim otherwise on this page.