Vintage Dress shoe appreciation, tips, maintenance and advice

actionjbone · Apr 18, 2024

Awesome thrift finds today:

Left: Peal & Co. for Brooks Brothers, made in England, all original. Leather heels without V-cleat.

Right: Alden 1339 in shell color 8, rewelted & recrafted by Brian the Bootmaker.

Both way too small for me, so I'll clean them up and find them new homes.

Edit to add: got the Aldens cleaned up. Could brush some more, but for now I'm pleased.

sam67 · Friday at 10:10 AM

I was in Chicago this week and passed by a shop selling Alden. I went in and spoke with the owner. We discussed recrafting and he recommended Wyatt and Dad.

There you go!

ccpl14 · Friday at 1:15 PM

sam67 said:
I was in Chicago this week and passed by a shop selling Alden. I went in and spoke with the owner. We discussed recrafting and he recommended Wyatt and Dad.

There you go!

Sean at Dashing?

sam67 · Friday at 1:24 PM

ccpl14 said:
Sean at Dashing?

Yep. I had just left Optimo

actionjbone · Friday at 1:43 PM

Today, I picked up my 93602's from Raul at Master Shoe Repair.

tl;dr version: This guy's a keeper.

First: the heels themselves.

Top-of-the-line Vibram heels, as expected. Perfectly trimmed, perfectly flush. Nice thick pad, so it should last as long as the foresoles.

Unexpected bonus: he replaced the heel stack, too.

This pair had a plastic heel stack. I expected he'd reuse it. But no! He replaced it with a leather one. The new stack is shorter than the old one, but it's better & looks nicer. So I'm pleased.

The shine is pretty brilliant. They look better than they probably ever have. This is one of the 93602 pairs with two slightly different leather colors - and now the contrast REALLY stands out.

As you can see in these close-up shots, he shined them brilliantly, and he was careful to keep the factory patina.

Every tiny dark line between each pebble? Still there, still distinct. The very slight gradient across the medallion? The shine brings it out even more.

I'm extremely happy with how these came out. I'm trying to decide which pair to bring in for a full resole. He told me his house sole is oak bark (non-JR), so I might bring him one of my shell pairs.

Also, I might start buying polish from him. He uses Kelly, he says he thinks it's the most similar to old Meltonian. And he charges just $5 per jar.

ppk · Friday at 3:29 PM

actionjbone said:
Today, I picked up my 93602's from Raul at Master Shoe Repair.

tl;dr version: This guy's a keeper.

View attachment 2170541 View attachment 2170539

First: the heels themselves.

Top-of-the-line Vibram heels, as expected. Perfectly trimmed, perfectly flush. Nice thick pad, so it should last as long as the foresoles.

Unexpected bonus: he replaced the heel stack, too.

This pair had a plastic heel stack. I expected he'd reuse it. But no! He replaced it with a leather one. The new stack is shorter than the old one, but it's better & looks nicer. So I'm pleased.

View attachment 2170545 View attachment 2170543

The shine is pretty brilliant. They look better than they probably ever have. This is one of the 93602 pairs with two slightly different leather colors - and now the contrast REALLY stands out.

View attachment 2170549 View attachment 2170547

As you can see in these close-up shots, he shined them brilliantly, and he was careful to keep the factory patina.

Every tiny dark line between each pebble? Still there, still distinct. The very slight gradient across the medallion? The shine brings it out even more.

I'm extremely happy with how these came out. I'm trying to decide which pair to bring in for a full resole. He told me his house sole is oak bark (non-JR), so I might bring him one of my shell pairs.

Also, I might start buying polish from him. He uses Kelly, he says he thinks it's the most similar to old Meltonian. And he charges just $5 per jar.

I have a pair of those. He did a lovely job.

Vincent George · Monday at 1:00 PM

The most appropriate thread to celebrate Earth Day

J&M

smfdoc · Tuesday at 3:54 PM

I have come to the realization that retirement has drastically changed my shoe needs and the time to move some on has come. (You can DM me if you are an 11-12EEE is you know of a pair I have posted that you would really like to obtain) But I digress as it does NOT mean I have lost the desire to acquire something new. Today I stumbled on some LWBs from Foot-So-Port. Fortunately, @davidVC wrote about this brand and shoe back in 2017 and he was quite positive. The company was founded in 1927 and the owner patented a welting design. David said, "The insole of the pair is what distinguishes it from other vintage shoes. The insole is large and rises to a peak near the rear of the shoe. Much further back than where there is typical arch support. When looking at the insole, it appears to show blake welting but the stitching is a actually part of patented style of insole construction. The US patent for the insole (Pat #2713730), is listed on inside of the shoe."

The pair I bought has very little wear.

The odd thing is that the style label does not include the US Patent number seen in the pair on vcleat.com. Since the patent was issued in 1955, and they included it on pairs after the patent date, does this mean this pair pre-dates the 1955 patent?

smfdoc · 2024-04-24T06:38:54-0700

Sorry to double post, but after research I have found the answer to my own question of how to date the manufacture of the Foot-so-port shoes. The images all come from this Japanese blog at https://note.com/tanya_kaka/n/n57bae6c41af1.

The company used a month/year pattern seen on the lower left of each image. in the 1950s it appears they used a hyphen to separate them. The hyphen was dropped in the late 1950s. The 1955 patent number was included.

The hyphen was dropped in the 1960s, but the patent number remained.

The same dating system was used in the 1970s, and included an additional digit for the month for late in the year.

Curve ball! in the 1980s the company reversed the digits on the year. Second curve ball, they appear to have reversed the digits for the later months.

Sanity returned to the company and they stopped reversing the year date in the 1990s. The patent information was still included in 1991, but appears to have been dropped by 1992.

So, based on this information, my pair was made in July 1994 and the factory burned down two months later.

sethrobert · 2024-04-24T11:27:22-0700

First Time/Long Time. WTW with a pair of almost new Sibley's I just received, still trying to date them. Thanks to the boundless knowledge in this thread I was able to recognize a good deal and grab these.

sam67 · 2024-04-24T12:45:40-0700

It all lined up for wingtip Wednesday, and I just realized it!
93602

smfdoc · 2024-04-24T13:13:27-0700

sethrobert said:
View attachment 2173317 First Time/Long Time. WTW with a pair of almost new Sibley's I just received, still trying to date them. Thanks to the boundless knowledge in this thread I was able to recognize a good deal and grab these.

Welcome to the forum and this thread in an official manner. The Sibley's look great. You have gone down the rabbit hole for sure.

actionjbone · 2024-04-24T14:11:50-0700

Found in time for WTW: 93602 and 93604 next to each other at the thrift shop. Both clearly from the same owner, both with the same terrible cobblery work, and both bone-dry.

Both my size, too. Looking forward to cleaning these up.

Vintage Dress shoe appreciation, tips, maintenance and advice

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