Corners torn should I get it repaired?

[brigitte0810]

Hi, I have purchased a preloved black RH city, the body is lovely with nicely broken in super soft and smooshy goat leather, but the corners show a lot of wear, two corners actually are torn.

I am located in Germany, so Lovinmyhandbags is kind of difficult, but I asked a bag restoration place in Germany, whether they could do something about it. They said they would redo the whole edging/trimming with a new leather, that they would match with the leather on the bag. Now my concern is, whether this would be too risky, as of course I don't know how they will do the job or whether this would change the look of the bag too much...

Should I just cut the frayed edges and condition really well and be careful when carrying the bag, but then at least I wouldn't risk some odd or stiff looking new edging?
I have a link of pics of the corner wear:
http://s257.photobucket.com/albums/hh224/brigitte0810/Bbag corners/

 

[SkyBlueDay]

Hi brigitte, lovely bag you have there!

I have just purchased a City - very old, very well-loved (more so than I had expected from the photos sent to me, actually!) and the leather was almost ripped right though as one of your corners seems to be.

Perhaps before you send it off to be re-sewn with the new edges, you may wish to try the following.

I used UHU twist-up leather glue (it is in a black and yellow container) , and with a fine wooded toothpick, gently applied the glue to both surfaces of the torn, sheared away areas.

I pressed the areas together firmly, let dry overnight, and you can barely see that there was any rip, let alone any join, left. The leather is still very soft, and the colour is the same. As it's a light coloured bag, any discolouration from the glue would be apparent: thankfully, it's not discoloured in the slightest.

The torn areas are strong as ever, and I have used the bag without any ripping or peeling away of the leather.

I also applied the leather glue to the areas where it looks as if the leather is going to life off, before it has actually come away from the layer beneath it: a light application of the glue has strengthened that area, too. So, no need for me to send the bag away to be fixed.

I tend to think that even though LMB is so faraway from you, it may be good to send the pictures of your bag concerns to Barbara, asking her what she thinks, and if she can fix your edges without destroying the softness of the edging.

It's worth sending it all that way to LMB, I feel, if you want the job properly done.