How to tell a genuine Hermes wallet

Hermès is a French manufacturer that produces many luxury items. A Hermès wallet can cost over £1,000 so you need to know you are buying the real item and not a blackmarket replica. Hermès leather goods are hand sewn and are fabricated from start to finish by the same person in order to guarantee quality. Although people do resell authentic products you need to know how to recognise a genuine Hermès wallet.

A genuine Hermès wallet is hand stitched with linen thread using an awl. They reject mass production so do not use sewing machines to make their wallets. If you look at the stitching on a wallet and the stitches look perfectly straight then it is machine-sewn and not an original. Hand-stitching has a slightly imperfect look to it as the thread turns as it is drawn through each hole by hand.

Inside a genuine Hermès wallet there should be a stamp with three lines of writing. The top line has “HERMES” in upper case letters, and the accent over the letter “E” is parallel to the top of the letter and not at a sloping angle. The middle line has “PARIS” in upper case letters that are smaller than the first line. The bottom line has “MADE IN FRANCE” in smaller letters again. The words are stamped in solid unbroken silver text. If the accent over the letter “E” is angled then it is most probably a good fake item.

Some Hermès wallets have no hardware at all, while some can have zippers and others, including the Dogon wallet, have round metal fasteners. If the wallet is a genuine one, the zipper will have a stop at the end that looks like a capital “H”. The round metal fasteners are engraved with the words “HERMES” across the top and “PARIS” across the bottom. A fake may not have any words on the fastener, or they could be printed or embossed on it.

Hermès place a blind stamp in the leather of their wallets which indicate the year, and there can be a craftsmen ID too. This is normally a number or letter embossed in a small square. It can be inside the opening part of the billfold area or on a strap. Replica goods can have a fake date stamp. There have been many fakes sold with a blind stamp of 25s and a craftsmen ID of K.