First of all, I support your effort to repair something rather than throw it away!
In my experience leather that's dry but uncracked can easily be restored by gently rubbing in some type of specialty leather conditioner product such as Blackrock Leather 'N' Rich or even a cream style shoe polish (I like Meltonian Boot and Shoe Cream Polish; others are Saphir devotees).
If there is cracking, however, that is much more serious and depending on the extent of the damage, may or may not be repairable. Or more specifically, you can't ever really repair cracks in leather in the sense that once fibers of the leather break, they are broken forever, but you often CAN disguise the damage by moisturizing the fibers around the crack, sewing the crack together if there's a big tear, and/or treating the leather with a "healing balm" or "leather filler" product. Those last sorts of products will generally contain more wax than a conditioner. Conditioners are formulated for the primary purpose of soaking into the leather to add oils that help the leather stay flexible, whereas a filler/healing balm product sits more on the surface of the leather it's applied to in order to protect and camouflage damage.
