The curse of the self-employed is that the tendency, when offered work of any sort, is to say '... yes, of course' and only THEN try to work out how on earth to do/make/supply whatever it is. This briefcase was probably one such job and I should have said no to it. But, I didn't - and here it is. The top is veneered with rich coloured mahogany 'crotch' with no further decoration except for a fine ebony line around the edges.

Sorry about the rather other-worldly invented background - I had to cut this out of the original which was horrible and featured a very limp rose!