Quote from Andrew:
"A lot is said about the latest leather John's using, but i'm loving the way the old stuff he made mine out of also 2 years ago is improving with age. Pilotm, i'm guessing that yours was the same batch of horsehide as mine- if I recall it was fairly new at that time, however mines aged quite differently.
Yours appears to have had an even wear over it which has subtley taken off a lot of the top dye and left the original in the deeper areas all over, whereas mine's got a slight amount of that but wear is more pronounced on the edges and wear points with a number of "chips" in the dye where it came off completely. It started doing this from early on in life too and i've seen the same on others of the time. Mine's had the usual loads of wear, rained on, some HWT and even a little ST recently (Steam treatment- this is worth a try for the brave), have you ever done anything to your to accelerate the wearing off of the dye- sanding or alcohol?"
Your jacket is as old as mine Andrew, and I think they must be sisters (mine is a "She"). My jacket aged just like yours: I have made intensive use of it for the past two years, and the first thing it started to do is to create a number of chips on the dye at wear points. Once the jacket was properly broken in by wearing it I hot water treated her for a couple of times. Grain was showing but not as much as I wished, and at that time I was kind of disappointed with the way things were going. I thought it over and came to the conclusion that the aniline dye was to thick for my liking. As with your jacket, mine was almost like new in broad places with heavy wear in rub places. It did not convinced me at all. So next step was to rub some of the dye with alcohol. This really made the trick. Now rub wear is starting to form again in the usual places, but the contrast is not so pronounced as before with the thick aniline dye.
Enjoy your jacket Andrew, it is beautifully made an has a lot of potencial.
P.D.: Sanding is a NO-GO.