I was flipping thru Dave Feldmen’s book and his answer was that it is artifically controlled.
Is this so? I mean hamburger seems to be so cheap. Do they just hold back hides or throw them out to keep the price up?
Cows are smarter than we think. And, no doubt they have a good lobby. This is the principle of using a “loss leader.” Hamburger doesn’t lend itself to being used in a fashion sense. Shelf life, and all that. But leather does. Since people value style, you can make 'em pay through the nose. You go, bossy!
WAG
Your ROTM* beef or dairy cows hang out in fields, eating grass and getting bitten by fly and other bugs. This creats imperfections in the skin, which make it unuseable for leather. I suspect that leather cows are protected from such things.
*Run Of The Mill. Am I the first to use that acronym here at SDMB, or have I seen it before and just blocked it out of my memory?
It’s supply and demand. Good leather is expensive. Mediocre leather is cheap. You can buy brand new XXL leather jackets at SAM’s club for
as little as $ 30.00.
To process, tan and make a high quality garment with fine leather is a very labor intensive process. I have cheap leather beater jackets I’ve bought for as little as 40.00 and some I've spent 600.00 on along with dress belts that cost 90.00+ and J&M dress shoes that cost 250.00. There is a typically a noticable difference in the quality of the leather for better clothing and accessories. I don’t know is this is as true for women’s clothing but it is for mens.
The price of leather is determined by supply and demand.
Since most people have lost any appreciation for fine leatherwork, the demand for quality craftsmanship and the high grade leather it uses has suffered in recent years. A good hide is not as common as you might think. Barb wire can destroy the apearance of an otherwise fine piece of leather.
Factor in that you have had to pump a few hundred dollars worth of feed through the critter that gave up its skin and that runs up the tab as well. We’ll steer clear of citing the ultra-nasty chemical soups used in the industrial curing and tanning processes.
Hamburger is on the inside of the cow, so the amount of it is proportional to the volume: (length of cow)[sup]3[/sup]. The amount of leather is proportional to the surface area: (length of cow)[sup]2[/sup].
You can tell the difference between American and European leather by looking for scratches on the hide. We 'Murkins use barbed wire, and when the cows scratch against it, it leaves marks on the hide. European leather is devoid of this.