I have had my second or third hand sheepskin coat for more than ten years, as I was recently reminded when I saw pictures of me wearing it on a trip to Rome in around 2000. It and I are looking quite good for our age, though we all suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous time.
My sheepskin developed a hole in the elbow which I had been wearing with pride for at least a year before I finally got round to adding some gold colored leather behind the wound. I wish to be proud of my caveman sewing skills, my bucking of the trend for over consumption and the beautiful aging of my reliable coat.
After breaking a few needles on another leather repairing task I took a trip to New York's garment district where shops still ply the hundreds of thousands of weird, wonderful and prosaic necessities for making clothes. I asked for needles for sewing leather and got a small paper packet of 'glovers' (for glove making) needles, made in England,
The packaging looked like something out of the 19th century and bore the mark of Schul-Sons made in England since 1754, with more gold print on green on the inside of the pack informing me that “Schul-sons is your guarantee” and “made of the finest English steel”. On doing a quick Google I found a US trademark that expired in 1986 so, at the very least, these needles have been waiting 26 years for me to buy them. But the packaging leads me to think that they are earlier still.
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