Legendary English saddle maker Brooks has released a limited run of colourful saddles made from leftover leather discovered during a “long over-due tidy up” of its factory. Far from scrapping it or taking a trip to the charity shop, Brooks has instead transformed the old leather into a new limited edition range called Unearthed, and all saddles are priced at £330 – around double the cost of the standard Brooks models.
Brooks England, the traditional leather bicycle saddle maker, is one of the most iconic names in cycling, and has been a mainstay in our bike seat buyer’s guides since we started writing them. The company still produces its leather saddles in Smethwick in the West Midlands using many of the same tools and processes first developed when Brooks was founded in 1889, with the saddles still very much made by hand.
The Unearthed saddles are made from what Brooks calls “factory-find” leather pieces that, “for whatever reason, [were] waylaid on their path through our finishing process” and were “…forgotten about. Until now.”
Each saddle’s model and colour is determined by the available leather tops, meaning the options were dictated by what was already on hand. No additional saddles will be made once the stock is gone. Colours include mustard, maroon, royal blue, ochre, violet, and green, while models in the collection include the iconic B17, the Team Pro Special, the narrower Swift, and the B67 Special Short.
All saddles are priced at £330, significantly higher than the standard versions (£170 for most models, £147 for the B67 Special Short), despite being made from leftover leather uncovered during the factory clean-up.
“This leather is exceedingly rare and unrepeatable,” says Brooks, though its rarity reflects the limited amount of surplus leather available.
To see the full Brooks product range head to brooksengland.com
Would you buy one of these limited edition saddles? Let us know in the comments section below.
-1024x680.jpg "“Clear anti-cyclist bias”: Lawsuit filed against Toronto police after cop doored cyclist… before ticketing rider over incident")
10 thoughts on “Brooks digs up “forgotten” leather, and turns it into limited run of £330 “exceedingly rare and unrepeatable” saddles”
Unearthed , never-to-be
Unearthed , never-to-be-repeated ! Are Brooks incapable of dying some leather these days? Are the stenographers incapable of asking that question?
Brooks don’t do their own
Brooks don’t do their own tanning. And stenographers don’t typically ask questions, they just record what is said.
https://bikepacking.com/plog/inside-brooks-england/#:~:text=Steve:%20All%20the%20leather%20we,better%20than%20chrome%2Dtanned%20leather.
quiff wrote:
I think that was the entirely deserved point being made about this puff piece of
sponsored“journalism”.You don’t need to do any
You don’t need to do any tanning to dye leather, it’s a seperate process. Leather compatible dye is readily available
Based on my experience with a
Based on my experience with a couple of coloured B17 Brooks saddles I own (purchased a couple of decades ago at no premium over the cost of a standard Brooks), after a while the colour wears off in the areas of highest wear, showing the black underneath over which the colour was applied. This happened both with a green saddle and a grey one.
Great marketing idea. Old
Great marketing idea. Old forgotten leather stock let’s use it and call it special edition.
Looking forward to presenting
Looking forward to presenting my “special edition” curry after a session clearing out the store cupboards and freezer!
OTOH I guess the leather was and remains leather, while my fridge-swag has just become that way…
It’s incredibly common, but
It’s incredibly common, but usually cheaper. All those end of season sale racks full of clothes that weren’t previously on the shelf? They’ve used up the end of run fabrics and leathers that were left over from earlier season’s collections. Depending on how old these leathers are, they might well be rare and unobtanium – tanneries close down and whatever stock is left suddenly becomes more desirable. If these are from somewhere like the old Clayton tannery then these particular leathers will never be available again
With stock control and shop
With stock control and shop floor management like that no wonder they failed to survive independently (or innovate, for that matter).
There’s not a factory in the
There’s not a factory in the world without some oddments of material floating around, doesn’t say anything about poor management