nothing like leather

"There's nothing like leather is an expression often used as a comment on commercial success, or to imply that trade in a good established national industry is far preferable to modern speculations or other sources of income. In the spelling books of a past generation, moral fables were frequently interspersed, and among them often figured "the town in danger of a siege." To protect the town against this catastrophe, each craftsman recommends his own material: the builder, bricks; the carpenter, wood; the ironsmith, iron. The fable proceeds with these words: "A currier much wiser than these both cried, 'Try what you please, sirs, there's nothing like leather.'" The satire of the foregoing is frequently implied in the expression as used today, and when a merchant has sung too loudly the praises of his trade, an auditor will perchance offer with a sly wink the comment, "There's nothing like leather."
-A.Wallace's Popular Sayings Dissected, 1895.