Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for choosing American Tanning & Leather for your contract tanning needs. We appreciate your business and want to ensure your skins are processed efficiently and to the highest quality standard. To help make that happen, we kindly ask that you follow the instructions below when sending your skins.

Unless your contract tanning skins have been properly handled—that is, skinned, fleshed, salted, and well cured—and the contract tanning form is completed and enclosed in the box with your skin(s), delays and issues may occur. Be sure to include on the form the CITES tag number and an accurate length measurement of the animal (not the skin).

At any given time, we have 20,000–25,000 skins in our facility, and our challenge is to keep everything organized and properly tracked. If we receive skins without the necessary
information—including deposit and color instructions—it significantly slows down our receiving process. These skins are set aside until the missing details are provided. This occasionally happens when a third party sends a skin with no paperwork, and it creates a cascade of problems in our tracking system.

We often say, “No matter how skilled the artist, a torn canvas limits the masterpiece.”  That’s because we frequently receive skins that have not been properly cared for before arriving at our tannery. Please understand: no amount of
craftsmanship can perfect a flawed foundation. Skins that have been poorly skinned, have holes, improper conservation, or have dried out, as well as those with natural scars and defects, cannot be improved through the tanning process. Deep scars may open during shaving, existing cuts tend to widen, dried-out skins are difficult or impossible to descale, and improperly cured skins can suffer grain damage—or, in extreme cases, fall apart during tanning.

We have detailed instructions available here. These instructions cover proper skin preparation and shipping in full. You will also find a PDF version of the tanning form that must be printed, completed, and included in the box with your skin(s).

Please note:   Skins received without this information will incur an additional fee of $50.00. This is not how we prefer to earn money, but tracking down missing information is both time-consuming and costly.

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Skins that are hard and dried out will be charged an additional $1.50 per cm for
belly skins and $2.00 per cm for hornbacks to cover the added labor and chemical costs required to rehydrate and clean oxidized grease from the skin.

Following these steps helps us serve you better, reduce delays, keep costs in check, and return your finished skins more efficiently.  If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at sales@amtan.com or by phone at 770-228-4433.  Thank you again for your cooperation and continued support.