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I've been wanting to make a Cutler Briefcase for awhile but using the Lancette style handle instead because I like how it looks, and have been trying to think of a handle attachment shape that isn't the same as most people are doing. I like how Phil used the wing design in the De Havilland course, and Olena had recently made a similarly styled briefcase where she used the shape of the Chrysler building in New York and folded it in half for the handle attachments but obviously I don't want to rip anyone off. I was talking to a friend of mine last week who is also an audio engineer, and was saying how I always wanted to get an old phonograph wax cylinder recorder or an old wire recorder or something just to try out and see how it sounded in a more modern context but they're a bit expensive to potentially use once or twice so I couldn't ever really justify the cost. Just for fun though I went on eBay to see how much they were and kept seeing a bunch of listings for Webster Chicago wire recorders which had a really cool looking microphone. I was on the Tannery Row website awhile ago who is the retail side for Horween among other tanneries, and there's a hatch grained combination tanned leather called Pioneer Reindeer which has a nice cool gray color that they're calling Chicago Blue, I'm guessing because it's a cool gray and not the normal brownish or greenish grays that most other tanneries sell (which I just really don't like and find it offensive that it's called gray). So I thought maybe it would be fun to do a Chicago themed briefcase and when I saw the microphone it hit me that I could use that design as the handle attachment and kinda combine everything into something that was more personal to me and not just copy someone else's design. I found a listing for just the microphone and bought it, it showed up a couple days ago and I made a pattern and then a prototype using stuff I had in the appropriate thicknesses just to see how to put it all together to make it work how I imagined it, so here's a picture of that next to the actual microphone:

The colors aren't what the final version will be like, and the D ring was the only thing I had in the right width and for the actual build I'll be using a nickel-plated rectangle ring. My thought was to incorporate the colors of the Chicago flag, which looks like this:

I still haven't decided what color combinations to use where, the red stitching in the prototype was the only color I already had in 432 that wasn't black, so it'll either be that or the light blue. I actually found some 1/2" red 6 pointed star conchos that I'm on the fence about using in place of the Chicago screws like on the De Havilland, I don't know if that's just too over the top and cheesy or not. I'm going to order some just to see what they actually look like in person. I live in the suburbs of Chicago and was born at a hospital in the city so that's why this is all relevant, it's not like I live in the middle of nowhere and just decided for no reason to do it this way.