In 1990 I bought 20,000 sq ft of mixed leather hides at a shoe manufacturer auction.
Didn't know swat about leather, but at $3k I took the risk.
Borrowed the money from a buddy, paid him back with interest from a loan from the Mrs after realizing it's easier to sleep with the loan shark than getting eaten by one.
I called a leather wholesaler-got the run down on pricing and it was $2-15 sq ft.
Pig skin @ the low-beef hide for the high.
I made a big grid table to measure-graded-sorted got ready to sell.
Threw an AD in the big newspaper "Leather $2 sq.ft all colours"
Sold Wed/Sat. morning for 2hrs-Friday loaded the van did deliveries for a 1/2 day
Sold enough to live-sold the remaining 10,000 sq.ft to a hobby outlet for $10K
Best summer ever.
Went detecting the rest of the time.