Vintage Footjoys

I own 2 pairs...beautiful 80s era dress saddles, solid black, with leather soles and heels with the original "FJ" inscribed heel lift.  They are at least comparable in quality to J&M Aristocrafts.  My others are a pair of tacky black and brown 2 tone kiltie/braided bow loafers, with a leather sole that has a ribbed rubber insert under the ball of the foot.  Again, nice leather, nice construction, just ugly and dated.  The issue I have with both is the last...it fits "short" for me, I'm a 11.5D-12D in loafers and a solid 12D in most other shoes, and these are both iffy as far as length for me...they fit, but I am cognizant of not wearing too thick a sock with either pair.  

 

I recently handled a pair of 1940s? era Field and Flint/Footjoy shoes at a local Goodwill store...beautiful workmanship, spade sole, combination heel, very impressive build quality.  They were about a size 7, so they didn't come home with me.

*whimper*

Sorry about that cptjeff...the flip side to that is that my 12D's are pretty much non-existent in vintage shoes...smaller sizes are all over the place.  

Yeah, I got my florsheim longwing tanks for basically nothing due to that. But still, those sound beautiful.

I'm also saddened because the goodwills around here don't even seem to get men's shoes, much less good ones. Actually, they don't seem to get much of anything half decent.

There are other thrifts with reliably better finds, so I'm not too deprived, but I rarely see truly nice vintage stuff.

I think people associate FJ with golf shoes, and there is very little interest in their dress shoes.  I applaud the company for finding a niche that allowed them to stay in business, but it does make me a little sad that all of these good, solid shoemakers have fallen by the wayside.  

Yup. Apart from Allen Edmonds and Alden, all the nice US shoemakers have either gone downmarket, shifted their business to a different area entirely, or just died. Unfortunate, and the fault of the eternal childhood generation that didn't want to wear suits, nice shoes, or anything old people wore, man. As with many issues we're having right now, we can pin this one on the boomers.

My father is in his 70s, and when I recently mentioned to him that I took some shoes to the cobbler, he looked at me like I had grown a second head...he was astounded that I didn't just buy cheap stuff and toss the shoes when they got worn. He was amazed that a cobbler was still in business, and wanted to know where he was located.  

 

As a guy who lived through the depression, and tends to be thrifty to a fault, it seemed a bit strange that he has the "throw-away" mentality that my kids annoy me with...

 

Anyway, I'm always on the lookout for cool, Made in USA shoes, mainly as functional additions to my wardrobe, and the FJs have been nice additions.

 

 

They are very TTS to a little like .5 down off tagged size. I had a beautiful vintage gator pair in 10.5 but they were really a US10 and I sold them.


You would have made at least USD100 on those as a flip.

I have never purchased anything to flip...more trouble than it's worth to pack and ship, even if I had made money on the transaction.  I don't do paypal or ebay, just not my thing.