A desk in use, photographed unstyled: the tray in London tan, a brass opener already carrying its first tarnish, walnut with the grain running across.
A small shop of desk objects, made from vegetable-tanned leather, unlacquered brass, American walnut and brushed nickel. Twelve pieces, listed below in full.
Index of pieces
Twelve · $29 to $349
A desk in use, photographed unstyled: the tray in London tan, a brass opener already carrying its first tarnish, walnut with the grain running across.
The leather is vegetable-tanned cowhide, 2.4 mm, tanned in pits over several weeks rather than in a drum over a day. It arrives pale and stiff. Cut edges are sanded, burnished with gum and beeswax, and left unpainted. Stitching is saddle-stitched by hand in waxed linen at seven stitches to the inch, which is slower than a machine and does not unravel when one stitch fails.
The brass is solid CZ121, cast or turned and then left unlacquered. It will go from bright yellow to a deep amber-brown, faster where a hand touches it most. The walnut is American black walnut, oiled only, and the nickel is brushed rather than polished so a fingerprint does not sit on it. None of these three finishes is sealed against time, which is the whole point: a tray you use every day for twenty years should look like a tray you used every day for twenty years.
Numbered as indexed
$14 anywhere in Australia. Dispatched in 2–4 business days from Sydney.
Tell us within 7 days with a photograph and we repair, replace or refund. Not change of mind.
Leather takes colour unevenly, brass tarnishes at its own rate, walnut grain differs board to board.
No. Vegetable-tanned leather darkens with light and with handling, and it does so unevenly — the front edge of a tray goes first, the underside last. Expect a noticeable shift in the first two months and a slower one after that. Marks from a wet glass or a pen will set into the surface and stay there.
It is not. Unlacquered brass oxidises from the day it leaves the bench, and we ship it that way deliberately — a lacquered piece looks even until the lacquer wears through in patches, and then it cannot be corrected. If you want the brightness back, any household brass polish returns it in a minute or two. If you leave it alone it settles into a dark amber.
By hand, saddle-stitch, two needles on one thread of waxed linen at seven stitches to the inch. Holes are marked with an iron and pierced by hand, so spacing is even but not machine-identical. A saddle-stitch holds even when a single stitch is cut, which a lock-stitch does not.
Only in dimension. Leather comes from different hides and takes dye differently across a single skin, brass castings vary slightly in surface, and no two walnut boards carry the same figure. A tray and a blotter bought together will read as a pair, not as a matched set.
A flat $14 anywhere in Australia, with no threshold and no express option. We dispatch in 2–4 business days from Sydney; after that it is standard parcel post, which is usually 2–5 business days on the east coast and longer to WA, NT and regional addresses.
Send a photograph within 7 days of delivery and we will repair it, replace it or refund it. That covers manufacturing faults and damage in transit. It does not cover change of mind, and it does not cover patina, tarnish or grain variation, which are not faults.
Yes, and we would rather you did. Stitching can be redone, edges re-burnished and brass re-polished. Write to us with a photograph and we will quote the work and the return postage before you send anything.