About My Vintage Straps

Sully's vintage straps are handcrafted from cleaned and reconditioned select old/vintage leather.

Each instrument strap is a unique creation and inherently different from every other one. The leather could have distress marks, indentations, surface cracking and other blemishes naturally acquired over the years.

These straps are made for daily use and each shoulder piece is lined with new suede leather.

I will custom fit and finish each strap to the length and attachment points given by the buyer.

Most mandolin straps would work for a small guitar or open-back banjo if you like a small shoulder piece.

Most guitar straps would work for a heavy five-string banjo.

To purchase a strap,
email me and we’ll chat.

SHIPPING BY:
Priority Mail with Delivery Confirmation

Good vintage leather takes time to locate, and I’m always looking. I try to have 8 straps available but don’t always succeed.

Vintage Strap Links:
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Lefty's Straps

Vintage Instrument Straps: Page 3

Guitar/Bango Strap #347Guitar/Banjo #449 $125 plus shipping

A dark oil beauty created from two exceptionally nice pieces of vintage leather.

The symmetrically shaped shoulder piece could be oriented to fit either a right or left handed player and measures 11 1/2" long and 2 3/8” wide in the middle, with each end tapering slightly to 2 1/8”.  The high quality leather is thick yet really soft and supple stuff. There are a few minor battle scars present that are not easily noticed and overall it is very lightly distressed in appearance and totally check free. I salvaged it from an old, handmade piece of horse tack as evidenced by some irregularities in the stitching line. All of the stitching is new waxed harness thread, hand sewn into the original needle holes.

The old 5/8" wide hand laced strap paired with the shoulder piece is made from excellent English leather with a nice vintage character. It has been well broken in and is soft and supple yet still quite strong and solid despite its age. The lacing covers a section 22” long near the center of the strap and, when finished, some of the lacing will be visible in front of the shoulder piece and some behind it. There is no checking or blems worth mentioning.

A very nice and classy strap that wouldn’t be out of place on the finest instrument, old or new. 52" is about as long as I could finish this one.

Guitar/Banjo Strap #348Guitar/Banjo #444 $125 plus shipping SOLD

Years of use in a previous life have left this shoulder piece with a delectable vintage character. It’s covered with hand tooling and, although it shows some wear, the original vine pattern is still easily visible. The curved shape would favor the left shoulder of a right handed player and it measures 14” long and 1 5/8” wide tapering slightly towards each end. Including the suede leather lining it’s a full 1/4" thick and plenty supple enough to hug your shoulder. I replaced all of old edge stitching with artificial sinew, hand sewn into the original needle holes and the faded yellow color compliments the vintage character well.

Attached to each end of the shoulder piece with some glue and a leather thong is a color matching western rein strap. The 5/8” wide leather is really nice old stuff, very supple and a great match for color and character. I skived the thickness just slightly to level it out at 3/16” and it has the same solid yet flexible feel as the shoulder piece. Each end was skived a bit thinner to make a neat and flexible connection to the shoulder piece and the strap fits snug and neat into the carefully cut and shaped strap slots.

Personally, I prefer a wider shoulder piece for my heavy five strings but this one would do quite well on a lighter banjo or most any guitar. It would also look pretty nice on a mandolin but its probably a bit more leather than you’d need to do the job.

Guitar/Bango Strap #347Mandolin #127 $85 plus shipping

I pulled the shoulder piece for this one off of an old piece of horse tack where it served as a decorative addition.  The scalloped shape makes it kind of unique and the dark oil leather is very nice quality, flexible and supple, yet has a solid feel to it. The length is 7" and width-wise it’s 1 1/2" at the widest part and 1 1/8” in the middle and slightly narrower at each end. I picked out all of the original cotton stitching along each edge and replaced it with new waxed harness thread, hand sewn into the original needle holes. The shoulder piece will adjust position on the strap, but the carefully cut and shaped strap slots lock it pretty snug on the strap so it’s not gonna slide around without help.

The strap that I matched to the shoulder piece is an old and weathered 1/2” wide western  leather rein. It’s very nice leather, butter soft and supple, and I left the original thickness unskived. The leather is certainly strong enough to handle a small guitar or open back banjo but the overall size of the strap is just too small and it’s best suited to for a mandolin.

As always, the price includes a perfect custom fit on your instrument to the specs you provide.

Vintage Strap Links:
Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3
Lefty's Straps