I picked up two vintage, signed Al Stohlman belts this morning for the ungodly price of $4. One's a beautiful hand-tooled rose-and-thorns pattern; the other's almost a fleur-de-lis.
Both belts are light brown with a great patina. The problem is that they've blackened severely around the holes. It looks like the previous owner liked to hitch his thumbs into the belt, creating a wear pattern that I guess is dead skin and grime?
Is there any way to clean the leather, or should I just cut down the belt and try not to gain weight?
The pictures aren't great, but you can see, in the second shot, that the left side of the leather is almost black, and the right side is a much more natural dark brown.
