Normal leather collar wear?

So Cajun got a new collar from EL like 3-4 weeks ago and today when I took it off her I noticed on the inside it looks like this...

Which I maybe wouldn't normally have paid attention to, however this is compared to her other collar that we've had for like 6 months:

Big difference!

Juno has an EL that she's had for a few months now as well, and it's not the same black leather as those 2 but hers doesn't have that "frayed" look, either. But I don't really know anything about leather so I don't know if that could be considered normal for it? I can email them too but yeah figured I'd ask you all first

It really depends on the type of leather, and where it's cut from. It's normal for certain cuts to do that, and shouldn't affect the life of the collar. I had one leather cut from the "neck" area that had creases in it that bugged the crap out of me, though it didn't affect anything other than the aesthetic look of the collar. From then on I request collars cut from a different part of the leather.

I can't remember the "type" of leather that gets that look to it, but in the future I'd request the collar be from a different type, or tan of the hide.

I don't think that's normal...well I've never seen Merlin's leather collars get like that anyway.

Might be worth to shoot EL an email, you never know, maybe that kind of leather just takes a while to smooth down or something

I have two leather collars and about twelve leather leads from various manufacturers (JJdog, Karma, Stibbar, one unknown). My only EL product, also a black leather (service lead) is the only one with this kind of...damage? wear? despite being middle of the road in terms of use and age.

I think it's what happens when a hide is split down the middle, like horizontally through it, instead of tanned as a whole piece.

I had a collar do this to me from gundogsupply, though it wasn't their brand, just one they carry. I hated it so much I took the name plate off and tossed the collar.

Maddie has a brown leather collar from EL that she's had on pretty consistently for the past 2 years, and it looks nothing like that. She's had it on swimming, too, and I've only conditioned it once... because I wanted to

But it also doesn't look like the first collar in your 3rd pic... I just assumed along the lines that CD, said but I'm by no means an expert. I agree it might be worth and e-mail

Here is our 3 (?) year old Paco. I think it's gotta be at least almost 3 years old by now, but anyway, it's been through the ringer ... snow, rain, water, pools, lakes, sand, etc, and I think it's in pretty darn good condition.

I also think it depend on quality/type of leather, two of my dogs are wearing paco's and they look like Jackson's mom, my other dog is wearing a 6-7 year old one from collarmania before she gave up leather and it's still super smooth and shiny, like the 6 month old collar in the comparison pic. I'd have to look, not sure if any of our collars look quite like that but have a leash that did on the unfinished side, still holds up fine.

I've had Frodo's Blue Lynx collar for about 4-6 weeks, and this is what it looks like...

1monthBlueLynx by laurenscoombs, on Flickr

I think it's definitely worth asking about, those collars aren't cheap, and that doesn't look very nice.

My money is on it being an issue due to the location of the leather or the type, like CD mentioned. If it's split leather it would make quite a lot of sense.

My Karma and Paco collars are all smooth inside.

Thanks for the input! I'll have to remember to email them.

I've seen that extremely grainy leather smooth out nicely in leashes, but I haven't had it on a collar before so I'm unsure how long it'd take to wear off all the frays.

You could also take one of those like, eyebrow shaver things (they're like, a single razor on a plastic stick you can get at walmart or like CVS) and shave those off, and then condition the crap out of it.