A mark on your item could be one of many things: it could be a light scratch, as these are common with new leather and sometimes even occur in transit. If you think your item arrived with a scratch, please check out our Total Leather Care Guide for more information!
However, if this mark looks like it’s part of the leather or maybe even resembles a pen mark, it’s most likely a character mark! At Portland Leather, we use only the highest quality full-grain leather for all our items, which means we refrain from sanding down natural markings to keep the entire grain of the hide intact – this maintains the strong fibers within the hide and contributes to the most highly durable leather. This also means that every hide we receive has a range of natural markings, which we call "character marks". More specifically, these can be scars, wrinkles, freckles or even stretch marks! Each is a little piece of evidence that your leather came from a cow who has lived a life and makes your new leather unique to you.
Some examples of character marks are the following:
- Wrinkling/veining
- Freckles, moles, scarring
Scratch or Character Mark aside, our team is always happy to review a photo of any mark that may be concerning to you!