Just to give you an idea, the price of a kangaroo leather whip monochrome with a total length of 170cm (circa 6ft) – plaited by a professional whipmaker – could be around €300 – €350.
It goes without saying it doesn’t exist a fixed/ unique price! The cost changes in the light of what you are looking for, eg model, material, length, pattern and so on.
Bear in mind, this price can vary untl to spend around €600 – €1500 or more.
The final leather whip price is based upon different variables: length, numbers of plait, kind of pattern chosen, number of colours, materials and possible customizations like, silver collar, ferrule, engraved plate on the base of the handle and many more.
To all Indiana Jones, Zorro and Catwoman fans! To have a faithful replica of your heroes’ whip be ready you been warned 🙂
Kangaroo leather whips perform better than cow hide whips due to kangaroo leather features, eg it’s more stronger. I will speak about this topic in the next article.
These are some of the most common doubts all of us have each time are going to buy an item we know a little about, I’ll do my best to answer to these doubts with regards the leather whips world.
Due to the fact I’m going to speak about leather whips I need to make some essential introductory remarks.It depends on what you are searching!
Let’s now analyse all these variables:
Length:
The more a leather whip is long the more leather will be used and, as a consequence, it will take to the whipmaker more time to put together the set and plait the whip of your dream!
Number of plaited strips:
Kangaroo leather whips usually have an overlay of 12 or 16 plaits. But collectors also choose models with 24, 32, 64 or 72 plaits!!!
Whips with a high number of plaits are beautiful, but they will take extra time to the whipmaker to cut and plait them
Pattern:
The overlay is the outer covering of the whip made of several strands of leather braided together in different style (patterns).
Patterns are usually braided in 12 or 16 strips but in some cases, you get till 72 strands, but only for decorative purposes.
Different kind of patterns are available: from the more standard – ie “Herring Bone Pattern”- to more difficult and sophisticated ones. There is no a best choice. It’s purely a matter of taste.
The handle is the whip area where you can find different kind of patterns. They provide to the whip added value and personal style
Colours:
Except for the natural and saddle colour, the other ones are hand-dyed using specific products.
This kind of activity takes extra time and as a consequence it will affect the final price as well as the choice to have a leather whip made of two or more colours.
Customisation
Normally between a whip and its owner there is a special relationship.
For this reason, it’s very common the whipmaker receives requests of personalisation of the whip: They can go from a specific pattern to engraved ferrules placed on the handle or plates put on the butt of the heel knot or both.
All these elements will affect the final price of the whip.
Giovanni Celeste