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Originally Posted by shadow
Just went to the site to check on my order status and saw they added 4 leather items with the imperial dragon symbol on them. A TES wallet would be cool to have, but I'm not too sure about the quality...
Ryan, have you handled any of these new items? If so, how are they?
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I have handled them. I would feel more comfortable fielding really specific questions since they're kind of not my jam, but I'll give you my reasonably-objective opinions:
The leather is a really nice balance of being soft top the touch while also having a good sturdy sort of ruggedness. I keep running my fingers on it and it feels nice (I also rubbed it on my face for a second and it was super smooth, but I hope that no one was looking in my office for that moment), but it's not insubstantial. I feel like it will withstand an awful lot of abuse, and I actually tried to tear it and got nowhere even close to causing any issues. The one I'm messing with is our sample, so I don't know how much handling and mistreatment it's received, but there are some scuffs and small wear in the leather (more than in the one we photographed), and it's been made to not open perfectly flat (I'm guessing this is in order to make the sections where you put stuff sort of stretch open a bit when you open the thing), so there's a spot in the middle at the bottom that stays rounded and I can see it potentially wearing extra right there (it's the area in the photo where you can see the stitching stop). I think this will ultimately add to the appeal of the thing, though, since it reinforces that kind of rugged, worn look. Also, I'm really enjoying the contrast stitching on the outside. It looks great and is also nicely sturdy. I tried to scrape at it with my fingernail and it held up really well (though I added a new scuff to the leather in doing so). it's the kind of scuffing that looks really bad at first, and then you rub it a second and it calms down but you can still vaguely see it.
The dragon on the front is pretty cool. It's actually slightly raised, so you can feel it, and it'll probably wear differently and stand out a bit later, but right away it's nicely subtle. The inside one is much cooler, but probably would have been too much on the outside. I normally dislike using the same logo/icon/art in more than one place on a thing, but here it actually works great, I think.
The ID window is top loading and there's no place to put anything above it, but there are two little pockets underneath it which I didn't expect. In the photo of it open, you can see the middle spanning part, then a thin strip of leather, and then the regular card slot space... That thin strip actually has openings to fit stuff in front of and behind it.
The insides of all the pockets are a brown canvas-type material that I'm not overly fond of but it looks like it'll hold up well and be strong, and it's probably easier to get things in and out of than the friction all leather would impart. My biggest complaint about the first ones of these I saw was the zipper section in the second pocket. I thought it made the thing too thick and I didn't want to sit on it and feel uneven, but I see we've found a much thinner zipper for the final product. You can still feel a slight difference in that one spot, but it's probably as streamlined as possible now.
It smells really good, which is not important for a wallet, but does speak to the genuine leather, I guess. The little black card in the photos with the gold dragon symbol is a nice little care card that I hadn't seen before. It suggests avoiding heat and sunlight, and keeping the thing dry which is probably just boilerplate leather-handling tips.
My biggest issue is a personal one, and that's the thickness. It feels too thick to me, but I'm kind of a picky asshole about most things. It's actually nearly identical to the thickness of the thickest point of my wallet (but this one was empty when I measured). I'm bad at visualizing size accurately, so the closet thing I could find near me to give you an idea is that it's just a bit thicker than the cap to a standard Sharpie.
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The journal is really neat. The leather there feels more like what you'd expect out of those fringe-y ties you see around it. Still nice and soft (and good-smelling), but a little more texture to it. The size of it fits nicely in my hands and it's all bound with leather, so it's got this cool sense of not really having edges. You can feel the knots in the back if you squeeze it tightly (it's a book you'll be weirdly interested in squeezing). The pages are weathered-looking, which is a nice touch, but I'm not totally sure I like them (and they're completely unruled for the curious). I like the thickness of it quite a bit, but in at least this one that we photographed, you can see a demarcation where like two-thirds of the pages came as a unit and then the rest were added from some other block of pages, and for some reason that feels like a pretty big bummer to me. The left edges of the pages are ever so slightly glued together, but they're primarily just bound with more of that leather string, so maybe after using it a while it'll all stretch out and be kind of a comfortable mess and you won't notice?
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The bag is pinned up to a display by our front doors, but it looks as nice as you'd probably expect. Not sure how to weigh in there anyway, really.
[Edited to add:] I'm being told by Dan here that the bag will hold a 15" laptop, but doesn't have a specific sleeve or extra padding for that purpose. So while it's well made and spacious, he says he wouldn't sling his MBP in it.... Also, he says hi.
I don't know if this was helpful at all, but my hands smell awesome now, so feel free to ask anything else....