LEATHER

Unlike almost everything else on the mob-drop side of this site, leather has a real recipe behind it as well as a mob behind it. A crafting grid makes one from 4 × rabbit hide. It also sits in 8 of the game's chest loot tables.

A Leatherworker at novice buys it at an emerald per 6, which means there are two separate ways to arrive at a pocket full of leather worth selling: kill for it directly, or craft it up from something a villager sells even cheaper.

One buyer only. A Leatherworker at novice takes leather at 6 per emerald, and that slot allows 16 sales before it needs a restock. No profession sells leather to you at any price.

The best rate any villager offers is an emerald per 6 leather, from the Leatherworker, and 1 of the other 3 pays out faster. No villager sells leather back, so it is emeralds out and nothing in.

One slot at the Leatherworker takes 6 leather a trade, 16 trades, 16 emeralds. 8 of the 72 villagers that pay emeralds, emptied out:

16 acacia boats against 512 rotten flesh for the same 16 emeralds, 32 times the carrying, and the shortest wait is the Farmer at 10 real minutes of shelf, gathering not counted. Leather itself pays 6 an emerald, so 23 of the 72 ask less and 46 ask more.

This offer sits at novice, level 1 of five, one of the earliest trades a fresh Leatherworker unlocks. Getting a villager into the job at all is most of the work; the leather trade itself follows quickly after.

The slot runs 16 sales before it locks, refilling on the shared restock schedule every profession uses. Bulk selling means pacing a haul around that limit rather than dumping it all in one visit.

16 sales close the slot, then it needs 2 real minutes before it opens again, the same wait as every profession. A Minecraft day is 20 real minutes long and fits two of those restocks.

Camped there for a full day, that Leatherworker takes 192 leather for 32 emeralds, whether or not you are watching when each sale actually happens.

Check the crafting math above before deciding how to fill a stack. Cows and the other leather mobs are the direct route, but rabbit hide bought or farmed cheap and crafted up can beat hunting outright depending on which parts a villager nearby actually sells.

Where the emeralds go back: that same Leatherworker sells leather leggings at 3 emeralds each, so leather sold in can fund a pair of leggings bought back out at the same stall.

Also on the Leatherworker's list: leather tunic, flint, leather cap, leather boots, rabbit hide, leather horse armor.

Cows and mooshrooms drop it, horses and donkeys drop it, and four rabbit hides craft into one piece, so almost any animal pen produces leather eventually. That makes the Leatherworker one of the easier villagers to keep supplied.

What it turns into is mostly not armour. Books need it, item frames need it, and a lead needs string and a slimeball rather than hide, so a book heavy base burns through leather faster than a player wearing a full leather set ever would.

Books are the biggest drain: one leather each, and a bookshelf is three books, so a full enchanting setup is a herd of cows in disguise.

After that it is item frames, leads for moving animals, and the leather armour that is the only armour in the game you can dye.

A cauldron with water in it washes dye back out of leather, so the colour is not a permanent decision, which is unusual for anything in this game that involves a dye.

A cow drops 2 Leather at most without Looting, so the 6 Leather the Leatherworker asks per emerald is 3 cows at the very least. Breed them on wheat and the pen refills itself, which is what How to Build a Leather Farm in Minecraft is built around.