Steal Alert: The $199 Made in the USA Horween Leather Brief

Gustin Horween Brief in CXL #8, Dublin Brown, or Natural Essex – $199

All images via Gustin’s website, obviously, since these are currently up for pre-order and they won’t even start delivering them to customers for a couple of months. More on that in a second…

Made in the USA. Simple, timeless design. Seems to have all the attributes a briefcase should have. And it’s all leather yet still under two hundred bucks?

Well that’s impressive. So what’s the catch?

The catch, if you consider it to be one, is Gustin’s model.

The Chromexcel #8 option. A deep burgundy.

It’s crowd sourcing through and through. You pledge to back a product, and it doesn’t go into production until they have enough backers to make it worth their while. Also, returns? Troublesome if not impossible. They don’t carry a bunch of inventory (due to the model) so they’re not keen on throwing returns back onto shelves. They can try to do an exchange or offer store credit, but it’s best to consider everything final sale. So this is far from risk free. (Or, your mileage may vary. But I’d go by what their site says. And their site doesn’t say much about taking straight returns. So don’t count on being able to return it.)

Plus, you’ll have to wait for your goods for quite a while once your card is charged. They’ll charge you the amount if/when enough people buy into the project (once the meter hits 100%)… and then you wait. And wait. Estimated shipping time on these cases is late September, if not into October of this year.

The briefcase in natural essex.

Dimensions are 17″ x 12.5″ x 3.5″. So sleek, without being tiny. Should accommodate most laptops, and the interior waxed canvas sleeves were designed to fit a 15″ macbook pro.

Not a ton of bells and whistles on this thing, which some will love, some won’t. YKK zipper opens up to one main compartment separated by a couple of waxed canvas dividers. Leather pen/phone organizer is sewn into one of the dividers. Comes with leather “feet” sewn to the bottom of the case, and also comes with an adjustable shoulder strap.

And that’s it.

A worthwhile risk for some, but the model will certainly turn others off. Still, $199 for this kind of leather on a simple brief seemed well worth a mention. One of our contributors ordered a pair of shoes through Gustin, and you can read up on his experience over here.

Carry on.

The brief in Nut Brown Dublin. Dublin = cowhide, but w/ the same oils/mix used for Cordovan.