Croc strap question

[Cheesemonger]

I’m hoping you folks can help me out on this one. I am good with rep vs gen on bracelets, but not with straps so much. I know the older rep straps (the croc variety) had the Cuir Veritable imprinted, which is wrong since that terminology is for calf leather. But I think they have gotten better with new ones. This one is soft, but the stitching and the sides make me think it may not be gen.

top pattern looks ok

stitching and print (older used to have cursive script I believe and block font is somewhat newer)

please correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t gen straps have a smooth side and you can’t see what I call the “sandwich effect” line on the side of the strap for the top and bottom pieces where they are fastened together?

any assistance is appreciated on this one.

 

[Thatwatchguy]

Biggest tell on rep strap is the leather, it’s soft you say so that is a good indication of gen...rep straps are like plastic. They’ve done a good job on the rubber straps in terms of softness but I have not had decent a rep leather one - maybe others can speak to this.

I have gen 442X calf leather and 747P croco leather and the side finishes look good. If you haven’t check sold prices for the model, croc leather even used can be more than a rep watch.

I’d say gen based on the above and the fact no maker has a decent rep of a recent 46mm Breitling which has a 24mm strap, hence no decent rep strap.

 

[Cheesemonger]

Many thanks. This one had no clasp with it (but there is a decent clasp on Etsy that might work), so price was affordable. The middle of the strap near the attach point to watch case is soft to push as well (I forgot to list that aspect in my original post).

 

[Toofsy]

Hello,
The polishing of the edge on leather goods is very important, need time, energy, tools and will easyer with high grade leather. In traditional leather work this process is the one with the most steps to achieve a good result. But it's also easy to make up or duff the poor edge work...only for short term. As for bags, wallets...the cheap strap makers use heavy teint/paint to fill in the edge step as your pictures and make round effet, but it' only a fig-leaf. When the shift is too wide the layer of paint is deeper and more fragile. Quickly the paint will crease and peal off or the shift still visible as on the picture.
In the other, as I learned in hermes's atelier :
-all the leather layers have to be refine before assembling
- the glue must be really thin
- the stiching have to be hammered
- the edges have to be cut or sanded down before to be pressed with heat iron on both side (round edge and reject the glue excess)
- 1st teinted in thin layer
- smoothed with heat iron
- sanded down gently
- second teinted
- smoothed with heat iron
...
- Finish with really thin layer of beewax
- scrubbed with clean cotton fabrics.

As you can imagine the final price of the strap will depend of all of this steps. You can remove some of them and still have really nice straps. But rep straps move from cut to teint directly with cheap leather and teint.

I'm sure gen Breitling strap are far from this high end process.

Envoyé de mon Redmi Note 9S en utilisant Tapatalk

 

[Cheesemonger]

Thank you for the post, it is informative. From this, I am gathering the Breitling gen would have this process for the sides and the rep would not. So that “sandwich” effect I reference would be pronounced on the rep strap. I have looked at quite a few gen strap photos today and I have only seen smooth sides, not the side profile mine above shows.