The official Alden thread Share enthusiasm, reviews, sizing, advice, and photos.

saracen · May 22, 2010

I'm wondering how much of the QC issues is due to their exponential growth in recent years. I really hope they can pull themselves back though. The only way I see this happening without increasing cost is to decrease output.

jet · May 22, 2010

Aren't 90% of issues with indys? I mean it's their cheapest shoe and they crank out thousands of these especially the past year or two with the workwear boom. I'd say they are the hottest seller by 10 or 20 fold so it's not really very surprising they take less time with each shoe than say a lw or ptb.

saracen · May 22, 2010

90%? not sure. I'm sure it's much higher than their 'other' shoes as far as numbers go, but I'm not sure the percentages would be higher. For example, if they put out 100 longwings for every 1000 Indys, you may find that 10 longwings have defects vs. 100 Indys. Same in percentages, but will seem much worse in the 'forums'.

Just saying......we really don't have the numbers so I can't say one way or another.

jet · May 22, 2010

Well everyone seems to be complaining about their indys if you go back and read the thread.

saracen · May 22, 2010

I totally understand that. My point is that the 'number' of complaints doesn't give an idea of the percentages. Basically correlating a number in this forum and deriving a percentage of QC issues coming out of the Alden factory doesn't make much sense. It may, or may not be related.

Plus, most folks in this forum may be here because of Indys in the first place.

Anyway, don't want to start an argument about nothing.

Bill Smith · May 22, 2010

Originally Posted by michaelw

cigar lwb

those look really nice, pity there are no Alden dealers in Greater Toronto.

makewayhomer · May 22, 2010

Originally Posted by Ahab

Very nice. These look very versatile.

Well I am not sure what to think of the complaints here. It is like when I go to NewEgg and look at the user reviews and I see a bunch of horrible reviews on a product but when I buy it I do not have any issues at all. I think people are more likely to post when they have an issue. But here what surprises me is that some of the issues are from people who post many positive experiences so I have to take the negative experiences here more seriously.

For what it is worth I have a few pairs of Alden boots and I have a small separation at the bottom of the eyelet tab but nothing like the ones I have seen here and it does not seem to be getting any worse. BUT my Indy's fit a little large, they are not tight at all which may make a difference.

No. I use their colored shoe creams and have no problems.

I have had no problems with Alden QC but I do have the minor finishing flaws that all Alden's possess on all of my shoes. But I like it that my Alden's have these finishing flaws. Maybe it is just a justification or rationalization but I like it when I see the little flaws when I am shining my shoes. And I really hate to say it because I am going to open up a can of worms and I really am not going to talk about this....

But I remember reading about the holes in the back of the boots and looking and seeing the holes on my boots. Some people were freaking out and saying a lot of what people are now saying about QC. Well that was a while ago and I forgot about it until I was shining my Rider Boot's chukka and I noticed two little holes in the same place. It does not effect the boot in any way and I think the Rider's are made by Martegani which seems to have a much better finish than my Alden's. So I am not ready to accept that the sky is falling yet.

I agree.

Fantastic! Very nice and looks a lot different than the Indy's which I feel are getting over exposed on the forum at this time. Luckily they are not overexposed in real life!

+1

for me, the complaints just serve as evidence that Alden is not the superior / amazing value shoe company that many think them to be. They are in the same price range as some great British shoe makers - and more expensive than their chief American rival - and I just don't see the evidence that Aldens are built any better than than any of them. For your same money you could go by C&J or Grenson Rose etc, and I don't think the quality you are getting is any better. that makes them just another medium/high end shoe company, imo. and there is nothing wrong with that, per se, I just don't agree with the argument that Alden is amazing value.

slappy · May 22, 2010

Alden is like the lower east side of nyc. A lot of hip places there in the 70's-90's, then everyone got wind and moved in, now.its yuppie.central. Soon it was in vogue and people were willing to pay exhorbitant rents for the same places that were much cheaper in the past. We'll see if Alden can keep it up. As for Manhattan, well its almost entirely homogenized at this point, but wait I hear Brooklyn has some hip places....

enigma77 · May 22, 2010

willy cheesesteak · May 22, 2010

Yeah I dunno.

slappy · May 22, 2010

Let me move onto beer number 4 and explain it further. I got some friends over, tis an early drinking day.

jet · May 22, 2010

don't worry slappy i got it and liked it

willy cheesesteak · May 22, 2010

Growing up in the LES, the only things I remember were nothing but muggings, drugs, lots of Hispanics and Hasidic Jews running all the businesses, mad graffiti, finding crack vials and syringes when I was playing in the park, Chico & A. Charles murals, crackheads and homeless people galore, gigantic rats everywhere, kids fiendin whenever they heard the ice cream truck coming, making sure I got home before night falls, barely any white people besides public school teachers willing to step foot in the area, shaved ice in the summertime, and the only safe streets were Delancey and Orchard.

slappy · May 22, 2010

Im not saying it was a safe place, I was only pointing out that it had some hip spots for the purposes of my allusion. Poorer places tend to as you can take risks with your bar/restaurant/music venue when rent is really cheap. I grew up in fairly crime ridden areas of Los Angeles, but there were really cool places there.

jerrybrowne · May 22, 2010

Originally Posted by jasonfoote303

Got my Ravellos on today

These are great. Can you tell me where you got them?

TIA

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