Saddleback Leather Co.

About Us

When I started selling leather briefcases in 2003, it was easy because there was no competition at our quality level with our price. There were either luxury companies selling high quality bags at double and triple our price or generic companies selling mediocre leather briefcases, backpacks and medium grade wallets at our same price. A lot of those luxury and mediocre companies have since gone bankrupt and a whole lot of high quality niche leather companies have sprung up. I hope we had something to do with that. But that is our goal. To raise the bar on quality. “To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.” - Henry David Thoreau

To Innovate

Maybe this is a personal thing for me, but coming up with new ways of doing things and designing briefcases and duffle bags and backpacks is really fun. There’s just something about making things differently and better that is very satisfying and just seems right.

To Create and Encourage Others to Create

Can a person be creatively bankrupt? I used to think I was the designer for the creatively bankrupt since so many were just copying my briefcases (check out our advice to the knocker-offers) duffle bags, backpacks and even my wallets, but with inferior crap materials. But then I realized that that’s not true. No one is creatively bankrupt, they're just lazy. Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best.''Imitation cannot go above its model. The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity. The inventor did it, because it was natural to him, and so in him it has a charm. In the imitator, something else is natural, and he bereaves himself of his own beauty, to come short of another man's.'' If you’re reading this and you’re a knocker offer, come on. You’ve got it in you. Give it a shot and do it right, do it legally and do it with quality. Make your family proud for once.