01
The house
CAIMANFIELD began with a narrow complaint: most crocodilian goods on the market look like souvenirs, and very few look like tools. We are a short line of alligator and crocodile accessories — one briefcase, wallets and card holders, a calfskin-lined belt, travel cases, desk and grooming pieces. Fifteen styles are the whole catalogue. A style is added when a hide run and a pattern justify it, not when a season turns.
This site is operated by BIG DOG TRADING LIMITED, a Hong Kong trading company registered at ROOM B, UNIT 9, 7/F, WAH SHING CENTRE, NO. 11 SHING YIP STREET, KWUN TONG, HONG KONG. We keep the operation deliberately small. Hides are bought hide by hide. Pieces are cut and finished to order. Every enquiry is answered by a person who has handled the skin in question, not by a queue.
The house works in the materials the animal actually grew: Nile crocodile, American alligator, porosus belly for belts, brass for hardware, veg-tanned cowhide, lambskin or microsuede for linings. Nothing is padded out with filler, and nothing is described as crocodile unless the animal grew the scales.
02
The hides we buy
Two species dominate the range: Nile crocodile and the American alligator, with porosus belly used for the belts. We do not use embossed cowhide and we do not print a scale pattern onto calfskin. A crocodilian hide carries its own architecture — square belly tiles, softer flank, the ridge line along the tail — and that pattern is the product. Sanding it flat and re-pressing it would be cheaper and would destroy the reason to own it.
The surface we buy is full-grain in the literal sense: the outermost layer, unsanded, with the follicle pattern intact. Where a maker would correct a scar and emboss over it, our cutter reads the flaw and cuts around it. A hide with a heavy scar, a slack belly or a dried flank is cut down into card holders and key fobs, or rejected outright.
Every hide arrives with a CITES export permit and a tannery lot number. Those documents are filed against the order they were used for, and a copy travels with the finished piece. If your own customs broker needs the paperwork before shipping, ask and we will send it with the invoice.
03
How a piece is finished
Cutting is hand work. Every hide is a different shape, so a pattern that fits one skin wastes another; the cutter reads the scale flow before the knife moves. That is also why a hand-cut piece carries a size tolerance of roughly two to three millimetres against the listed dimensions. The tolerance is not sloppiness. It is the price of cutting to the hide instead of stamping to a die.
Edges are bevelled, dyed, burnished and waxed in four passes, then pressed flat. A finished edge should feel like a river stone, not like a fold of tape. Linings are chosen per piece: veg-tanned cowhide in the briefcase and travel case, lambskin in the wallets, microsuede in the tech sleeve. Hardware is solid brass, left unlacquered unless you ask for nickel, so it will darken and dull with handling.
Grain and scale will vary between hides, and often across one hide. The same model ordered twice will not be a photocopy of the photograph on this site. After a year of regular use the surface carries patina — a deepening of colour along the handles, edges and closures — rather than the flat gloss of a factory finish.
04
What we will not do
We do not hold stock to speculate on hide prices. We do not drop-ship from a warehouse we have not inspected. We do not sell factory-second skins described as firsts, or CITES paperwork we cannot show on request. We do not call embossed leather alligator. We do not take a card on this website, because there is no checkout on this website.
We also do not promise a delivery date before the hide is physically in the workshop. If a piece cannot be made properly in the time you need, we will say so and quote the honest date rather than the convenient one.
05
Working with us
Write with the piece name or SKU, the quantity, the finish you want (matte or glossy), the destination country and the date you need it. If you already hold an import permit for crocodilian goods, say so — it changes how we sequence the paperwork. We reply within one business day, Hong Kong time, Monday to Friday. Wholesale and press enquiries reach the same desk.
Pieces leave Hong Kong in acid-free tissue, a moulded pulp cradle and a double-wall carton, with a care card and any CITES documents. Small goods go by recorded courier; structured pieces are quoted by air freight on the confirmation email. If something arrives marked, the route is the 14-day returns process described in returns, not a complaint form.
Email BIGDOG202614@outlook.com or message WhatsApp +852 96606754.