Material was a left over piece from re upholstering a Volvo P1800 vintage car that someone else had left. It was a car like the Saint's in the 60's. Nice piece of supple leather.
My friend was keen at the time to give the benefit of his shoe-making expertise to a boards forum. There was a lot of enquiry and interest there. I touched base with a few mods to clear the way, and hey presto some ass hole of a mod banned him after a few posts for not using boards etiquette or some such excuse. After that it was dead in the water.