Leather making is a very long process and consists of many different chemical and mechanical operations. The most important operation of the whole leather making process is the tanning, which is performed mainly by vegetable or chrome tanning. With this work, we wanted to establish a connection between the way leather is tanned and its physical and mechanical properties. For this purpose, certain physical and mechanical properties of bovine, sheep and goat leather, which were obtained by chrome and vegetable tanning, were examined. Tests were performed on commercially available leathers. The selected leather samples were tested for thickness, mass per unit area, apparent density, braking force and breaking elongation, while other dimensions were calculated based on previously measured values. After the measurements, the results were compared according to the type of leather and the method of tanning. The obtained results showed better physical and mechanical properties of chrome-tanned leather compared to vegetable-tanned leather, with the highest breaking strength of chrome-tanned bovine leather (70.7 N/mm2). However, for a more precise analysis, when examining the physical and mechanical properties, it is necessary to have more precise data of the origin, tanning parameters and applied leather finishing. The chrome tanning process has advantages in terms of the shorter duration of the tanning process, but chrome tanning process has significant limitations in terms of environmental requirements, which is why the vegetable tanning process is becoming more relevant again.