Bates Seat Restoration

Bought this 1960's vintage Bates seat on ebay a few months ago. Pretty worn, stained and scratched, some small holes around the back edge and the original blue color sucks. That was the bad. The good points I liked about it is that the shape of the pan fits a Triumph swingarm frame perfectly, the seat strap is kinda neat, the leather is still soft and not dried out at all and the overall shape & design is exactly what I was looking for to use on my 1970 T100C Trail Bike project. I've never seen this exact type of Bates seat before and probably will never see another one again. RARE.

So I did some net searching and found some outfits doing leather restoration. Some of the before and after pictures were quite impressive. I contacted Advanced Leather Solutions that sells DIY kits as well as doing restoration work. After sending some pictures I was quoted a price for restoration and dying the seat black and I got the seat on a UPS truck. A couple weeks later I had my seat back looking almost new. I couldn't be happier with the results. The original cost of the seat from ebay was a little over $100, the restoration cost was $300. Maybe a little pricey, but $400 is what a guy has to pay for a decent seat for a late model Harley and this is a vintage piece of history that has been given a second life. There is no substitution for genuine Bates leather.