...my new Anthracite City! And here's what I think, after looking at dozens of bags:
1) Anthracite is definitely dark gray with green undertones. Whether you will be disappointed will depend on WHAT KIND OF GREEN you were thinking of. I was thinking of a murky, pond water green, which would give the sublest dark green hue to dark gray. It ain't that. It's more like the Aquamarine green, so the gray ends up being very, very lively. In natural light in shade, it's mostly gray with hints of green. Under yellow tungsten light, it turns a bit toward blue (very pretty) and in brighter sunlight, the green comes out more. Not so dramatically as the changes with Ink, but very nice variations. I will look through the photos already on the site and add the one that's closest IRL to this thread.
2) The COLOR is very uniform from bag to bag, unlike Ink where some bags were bluer and some more purple. With Anthracite, the color is virtually the same on all bags.
3) The LEATHER VARIATIONS are quite different, not just from bag to bag but also within each bag. On some bags the front panel was smooth, the back was lumpy and the sides were really wrinkly. It was hard to find a bag where all the leather textures matched fairly closely.
4) The leather is very soft...almost pre-broken in. And it's incredibly SHINY. Blinding at times! None of the bags were more matte, so I'll have to wait for a little wear and tear to diminish the shine factor. It's like the bag was dipped in lip gloss!
At first I thought I was going to pass and wait for Lead in the fall, but the more I looked at Anthracite the more I liked it. Once I got over what I thought the color would be from that stupid little postage stamp swatch (those things are SO misleading) I started to really like it. And now that it's home, I love it. It's beautiful against neutrals AND it's beautiful against color.
And I got it in a City, my first. Funnily enough, it's a perfect color for that shape, as I had hoped. And now I love the City, too, when before I was on the fence.
Okay, enough about Anthracite...now for AQUAMARINE.
Aquamarine is a bright, gorgeous color...the very first photo we saw of it was correct, not the more recent BalNY photo where it looked more green. I will look at the photos already on the site now and pull the one that's closest.
Sandstone was gorgeous, too.
I'll add those photos now...