Vintage Coach handbags, 1941–2002.
coachbook
A reference archive of vintage Coach Leatherware, 1941 through the Krakoff transition. Every claim is cited; every source is named; corrections are dated and logged.
Vintage Coach is the most folklore-prone vintage handbag category on the resale market: dated decoders that get the year wrong, Cashin attributions for bags introduced after her 1974 contract ended, "saddle-stitched" claims that don't match the brand's own catalog copy. This archive is what happens when the catalog corpus (107 issues, 1960–2020), the SEC filings, and the USPTO trademark record get read against each other and against the community record — and every disagreement gets a citation.
Authenticate
Is this bag real?
No single signal proves a bag authentic or fake. Combine the era-windowed checks across creed, country, hardware, and construction.
Browse the archive
What was Coach making?
The catalog corpus, era by era — silhouettes, colorways, and the catalogs themselves. The company timeline anchors the dates.
The work
How the archive was built
Citations, conflicts, corrections — the editorial substrate. Where claims come from, what's been disputed, what's been wrong.
In the repo
Reference
Working files in the public repo — project scope, editorial conventions, and topics not yet promoted to standalone pages.
Vocabulary
Confidence
Every claim in the archive carries one of these tags.
- confirmed
- Primary source, or two independent reputable sources
- likely
- Single primary, or multiple agreeing secondary sources
- tentative
- Community sources only, awaiting primary corroboration
- disputed
- Sources disagree; both readings shown side-by-side