Python Handbags

New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 719, 24 April 1953, Page 22

Python Handbags

Dear Aunt Daisy, I have just returned from a trip to the Old Country and on the way there, at Port Said, I bought a python skin handbag which I used during the time I was away. On the return trip, while nearing New Zealand, I found the bag very damp; but since my arrival home a kind of perspiration just pours from it on every damp day! It is so bad that I have to rest it on paper! It is like bubbles of water all over it. Naturally the metal work is getting vefy tarnished. It is a beautiful handbag, all lined with suede, and it is quite evident that the skin is real, but it evidently hasn’t been cured correctly. Can you or any listener help? Could you answer through The Listener, please? "Haitini," Tauranga. I discussed this most distressing matter with a leading leather and bag expert here and have no good news for you. He tells me he has had several other bags bought at Port Said brought to him during the last few months in exactly the condition you describe. As you thought, the python skin is not properly cured. It seems that these skins come mostly from the Dutch East Indies, and trom Egypt they are sent to England, after being treated a little with salt in the meantime. In England they are expertly and properly finished by the use of alum and an accepted process. However, when once in Egypt, many skins do not get

away, for the demand by tourists for python bags is very high; so the temptation to supply them is very great, although the real secret of successfully curing the skins is not known there. Consequently the salt causes continual "sweating" in a datnp atmosphere. Nothing can be done to your bag, now, that I know: of.