Recommendation? Leather for antique style bowie sheaths

[Rowan McDirk]

Antique bowie knife sheaths are usually leather covered wood or cardboard inserts with a brass or nickel silver throat and chape.
Stamped, tooled, embossed and gilded.

The leather I have on my antique sheaths is 1 mm or 3/64" thick.

Shoulld I use regular vegetable tanned leather (thinnest I find is 1.5 mm) to try to recreate an antique sheath. Or are there other kinds of leather that I are thinner and can also be embossed?

Thanks.