I was turned on to this company, Saddleback Leather, through a Rivendell Owner’s discussion group.

A number of items caught my eye.
The wallets all seem to be a great value. I’ve been needing a new wallet, so this pulled me in right away. It’s got most of the features I’m looking for: small, simple, fits in a pocket, and is built to last:

The business card holders would be a nice touch, and useful:

This last year I’ve been trying to replace one of those terrible rolling carry-on suitcases that busted. So far I haven’t found the perfect replacement. If I had $500 to spend on the perfect replacement, this would be it:

I haven’t needed a giant suitcase in over 8 years, but I plan on one day being a distinguished, International Man of Mystery-type traveler. When those days come, this is the suitcase I’ll take with me:

The bag I settled on, of course, is a daily use bag. The kind I love to lust after from afar: The Saddleback Leather Messenger Bag.  Usually, when you hear Messenger Bag, you think shiny and plastic. That’s not what I want, and that’s not what I get with this bag.

Here are my criteria for a bag:

1. High level of craftsmanship. I’ve discussed here how frustrated I’ve grown with what passes ‘quality checks’ these days.

2. Durability. If I’m going to be paying for craftsmanship, I want it to last. Forever.

3. Distinguished good looks. When I develop distinguished good looks in 20-30 years, I want my bag to be there waiting for me. In the meantime, it can help signal to people that I’m not 18 years old.

Here is the bag (Since I don’t own one of these yet, I stole all the photos off of this excellent review of the bag):

It can be simply transformed into a backpack:

And has all the hefty, destruction resistant features you could ask for: rivets at stress points, D rings, leather straps, no breakable parts.

These pictures are of the Dark Tobacco Brown color. If it were me, I’d go with the Dark Coffee Brown in this photo:

It costs a pretty penny, but comes with a 100 year warranty. That’s right, 100 years.

Rugged, good looking, distinguished and built to last. What more could you ask for?

I was helping a friend load up his moving van when I came across this old school Kelty backpack, I couldn’t help but yell out to him, “This is a great backpack!” and snap a picture.

The colors hint at a Rastafarian phase long past. It is well used, but no worse for it. The sign of a well made product put to the test.

It passed.

And now it is in a huge truck on its way to Utah.