Content: Finished leather is a material purchased by surface measurement. Compared to other goods, which value is defined by a measure, for leather there is no certified reference material able to represent the numerous types of articles present on the market. Moreover, there is not a single type of machine, with the consequent difficulties in comparison of data obtained by different devices on different kind of leather. As far as the devices available are concerned, the pin-wheels machine was the most used device until the sixties, period after which the increasingly massive diffusion of electronic machines began. With regard to the tolerance allowed, in late nineties an agreement between the ICT and ICHSLTA was reached (International Contract N. 7): 2% and 3% for soft and elastic leathers. These limits were fixed without considering the possible deviation of results using different devices and without considering the reproducibility of measures in function of the effective flexibility and physical characteristics of leathers. Over the years, however, the pin-wheel machines have been completely substituted and, due to the high costs of maintenance and management of the pin-wheel machines, only a few of the institutes recognized by ICT, including the SSIP, are equipped with a fully functional pin-wheel machine. Despite this evidence, the Contract continues to consider pin-wheel machine as the reference one for disputes. For the above, an extensive data collection campaign has been carried out involving all the industrial chain of leather: tanneries, brands, users, laboratories, research institutes and devices manufacturers. 16 different kind of leather articles, representative different leather uses (gloves, apparel, footwear, leather goods, furniture, automotive), were measured using all the machines currently available on the market (roller, conveyor, scanner and digital image acquisition devices) and considering ISO 19076 and ISO 11646 measurement procedures as the reference ones. Thousands of data are now available to qualify the behaviour of the leather for each type of machine with its specific characteristics. This was done by statistical robust analysis of the data and by the comparison of the values obtained with the pin machine. The leather used were also mechanically characterized in order to be able to identify any correlations with the reproducibility of the measurements and with the imposed tolerances. Take-Away: The purpose is the possibility to overcome all the restrictions connected with the pin-wheel machine, the improvement of actual EN ISO methods of leather measurement and a better instrument to define tolerances considering the couple leather-machine.