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Dacks and other Canadian shoe brands

suitforcourt

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Triple soled John McHale in their iconic cherry.
 

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Jiqea

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Triple soled John McHale in their iconic cherry.
Every Canadian shoe aficionado needs to find a pair of these 85306 killers, and it is possible!! I found two pairs in my size this summer, which got me digging into their history a little. While the style likely dates back to the 1950's, surprisingly they continued to be produced well into the 1970's, which explains why they are not all that uncommon, and often even show up in NOS condition. They can be found labelled as "John McHale" and as "John McHale Custom Shoe". Hopefully I should have a longer, illustrated discourse ready soon. I almost wore mine to the Robert Plant concert last night in Ottawa, but opted for a pair of Trickers boots instead, as I thought we might end up standing in some moist grass. As it turned out we were one row from the rail on pavement.
 
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Jiqea

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Ever since I picked up this pair of NOS John McHale gunboats last month I have been pondering the question of how old are they.

Every Canadian shoe aficionado needs to find a pair of these 85306 killers, and it is possible!!. I found two pairs in my size this summer, which got me digging into their history a little. While the style likely dates back to the 1950's, surprisingly they continued to be produced well into the 1970's, which explains why they are not all that uncommon, and often even show up in NOS condition. They can be found labelled as "John McHale" and as "John McHale Custom Shoe". Hopefully I should have a longer, illustrated discourse ready soon. I almost wore mine to the Robert Plant concert last night in Ottawa, but opted for a pair of Trickers boots instead, as I thought we might end up standing in some moist grass. As it turned out we were one row from the rail on pavement.
And here is one pair of the shoes I picked up out of New York City. Repatriated!!
IMG_2128.jpg
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mariusscott

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Found today at a thrift, $4, soles are not in great shape and too small of a size, suspect they will eventually head towards Japan once they are cleaned up, inner liner is from the 1940s-1950s
 

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Jiqea

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Found today at a thrift, $4, soles are not in great shape and too small of a size, suspect they will eventually head towards Japan once they are cleaned up, inner liner is from the 1940s-1950s
They would be worth re-soling. Lovely. That liner dates from 1949-1953. I have not seen that style even in the old ads.
 

mariusscott

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Finished cleaning them up, I did once have a nicer pair of later 50s dack spectators that were wingtips, vcleat heels that were bought by a flipper on ebay that I liked more than these but still a fascinating piece of history
 

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Jiqea

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Finished cleaning them up, I did once have a nicer pair of later 50s dack spectators that were wingtips, vcleat heels that were bought by a flipper on ebay that I liked more than these but still a fascinating piece of history
Do they have the Diamond tag in the interior of the one shoe. If so does it use the old narrow script logo or the thicker modern logo? I ask because I will be posting later today on a pair of shoes from the same 1949-53 time period that use the new thicker logo throughout (sock liner, soles and heels), but have the earlier narrow script diamond tag. I just love the dye they were using to achieve the oxblood colour in the 50's. So glad to see your pair. As you say, a real piece of history.
 

mariusscott

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Its not that legible but appears to have some writing at the bottom which I do not recall seeing on other pairs in and around that era
 

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Jiqea

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Its not that legible but appears to have some writing at the bottom which I do not recall seeing on other pairs in and around that era
That is the earliest square tag I have seen, I believe in said "Dacks: For Over a Century"
 

Jiqea

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Style Forum membership has benefits!!!

Yesterday, while readying to go out for the evening, I received a direct message from the beating heart of the Dacks and Other Canadian Shoe Brands thread; yes @suitforcourt!!! Ken maintains a posting on a local buy and sell board indicating his interest in purchasing quality Canadian vintage shoes. Recently he was contacted by a gentleman in Ottawa about a very intriguing pair of Dacks that appeared to date from the 1950's. They were not in Ken's svelte 9G size, nor in the Toronto area, so he kindly reached out and hooked me up with the vendor.

This morning I met the gentleman, who as it turns out had thrifted these shoes in Toronto years ago and worn them only once. Ken had already negotiated a very attractive price, so after a nice chat, I was on my way home with these beauties.

They are a remarkable pair in a few regards. Dating vintage shoes can often be difficult, but this pair has a few attributes that allow for a fairly precise determination of their age. The Dacks company was sold by Stanford Elmore Dack (old S.E., my avatar) to the Marston group in 1948. By the fall of 1949 the new owners had completed a refresh of the company branding, including moving from the old thinner script Dacks logo to a "modern" thicker script. This new thicker script shows up on these shoes on their sock-liner, soles and heels, and indicate the shoes do not date before mid-1949.

The "Custom Grade" sock-liner, with the text oriented parallel to the long axis of the shoe, was the first of the "new logo" sock-liners and was only used from late 1949 to 1953; therefore these shoes cannot date later 1953. The shoes also employ the 3 digit coding system for colour, material and style. At some point during this four year window Dacks added an extra digit to their coding,with both 3 and and 4 digit examples paired with this sock-liner extant. This suggests that these shoes should date earlier in this window rather than later. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the red diamond sock-liner tag retains the old narrow script Dacks logo. I have seen roughly a dozen of these 1949-53 Dacks shoes, and all but this pair have a thick "modern script" diamond tag. This leads me to believe that this pair likely dates to late 1949 or early 1950, when Dacks was either using up their old stock of the diamond tags, or had yet to receive a supply of the new embroidered tags. This "old script" red diamond tag is in fact the very first of these I have seen, which speaks to the dismal survival rate of pre-1950 shoes.

IMG_2410.jpg
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IMG_2408.jpg
 
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suitforcourt

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Style Forum membership has benefits!!!

Yesterday, while readying to go out for the evening, I received a direct message from the beating heart of the Dacks and Other Canadian Shoe Brands thread; yes @suitforcourt!!! Ken maintains a posting on a local buy and sell board indicating his interest in purchasing quality Canadian vintage shoes. Recently he was contacted by a gentleman in Ottawa about a very intriguing pair of Dacks that appeared to date from the 1950's. They were not in Ken's svelte 9G size, nor in the Toronto area, so he kindly reached out and hooked me up with the vendor.

This morning I met the gentleman, who as it turns out had thrifted these shoes in Toronto years ago and worn them only once. Ken had already negotiated a very attractive price, so after a nice chat, I was on my way home with these beauties.

They are a remarkable pair in a few regards. Dating vintage shoes can often be difficult, but this pair has a few attributes that allow for a fairly precise determination of their age. The Dacks company was sold by Stanford Elmore Dack (old S.E., my avatar) to the Marston group in 1948. By the fall of 1949 the new owners had completed a refresh of the company branding, including moving from the old thinner script Dacks logo to a "modern" thicker script. This new thicker script shows up on these shoes on their sock-liner, soles and heels, and indicate the shoes do not date before mid-1949.

The "Custom Grade" sock-liner, with the text oriented parallel to the long axis of the shoe, was the first of the "new logo" sock-liners and was only used from late 1949 to 1953; therefore these shoes cannot date later 1953. The shoes also employ the 3 digit coding system for colour, material and style. At some point during this four year window Dacks added an extra digit to their coding,with both 3 and and 4 digit examples paired with this sock-liner extant. This suggests that these shoes should date earlier in this window rather than later. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the red diamond sock-liner tag retains the old narrow script Dacks logo. I have seen roughly a dozen of these 1949-53 Dacks shoes, and all but this pair have a thick "modern script" diamond tag. This leads me to believe that this pair likely dates to late 1949 or early 1950, when Dacks was either using up their old stock of the diamond tags, or had yet to receive a supply of the new embroidered tags. This "old script" red diamond tag is in fact the very first of these I have seen, which speaks to the dismal survival rate of pre-1950 shoes.

View attachment 1245605 View attachment 1245606 View attachment 1245607 View attachment 1245608 View attachment 1245609

Holy smokes, those are near NOS condition!!!

Glad you got them. What a find.
 

Jiqea

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Its not that legible but appears to have some writing at the bottom which I do not recall seeing on other pairs in and around that era
Hi Marius

It has taken me a bit of digging around, but here is a clean example of that shoe tag, associated with the identical shoe liner. It must have been an early 50's thing.


il_794xN.1136326451_hz20.jpg
 

Jiqea

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I briefly owned this pair of early 50's Dacks cap-toes. I posted them as a restoration project and they were gone in 15 minutes. I thought I would post the pics here to continue to build up our "reference library" of early Dacks shoes. I bet these shoes turn out wonderfully. Such amazing build quality. I wonder if the steel toe and heel taps could be requested directly from Dacks, or if it was an after market product. All of the Dacks stores took in repair work back in the day. I am not sure if they shipped it to a central repair location, or if they could do some work in house. The ads make clear that they would repair any shoe, not just Dacks.

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mariusscott

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Hi Marius

It has taken me a bit of digging around, but here is a clean example of that shoe tag, associated with the identical shoe liner. It must have been an early 50's thing.


View attachment 1245781
think ive seen one in better shape beforehand but must have missed it...regardless the quality back then was just unbelievable
 

suitforcourt

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Ritchie shoes. Conservative black cap toes for a tough day.
 

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