Dacks and other Canadian shoe brands

[Jiqea]

Today I have answered the age old question of how you accessorise your Dack's camel leather shoes. You wear your Dacks camel leather 150th Anniversary belt of course!!!! It is marked camel grain on the back, but it sure matches the shoes nicely.

 

[Dit_rich]

@suitforcourt is your in-house expert on quality cobblers across the nation. Reach out to him, or look for his cobbler review thread(s) here on SF. Good luck!

Gee, I should've asked earlier and safed myself a lot of searching -). First page in his thread and I got myself a cobbler -
Quick Cobbler - Vancouver Canada.
Thank you Paul902!!!
The forum is so huge I am still behnd absorbing all the information. Sorry if I ask questions that were discussed before.

 

[Paul902]

Gee, I should've asked earlier and safed myself a lot of searching -). First page in his thread and I got myself a cobbler -
Quick Cobbler - Vancouver Canada.
Thank you Paul902!!!
The forum is so huge I am still behnd absorbing all the information. Sorry if I ask questions that were discussed before.

Glad that it helped! No apology necessary. We all have something to learn here and it is often much easier to ask than to study.

 

[suitforcourt]

Thank you! I got myself a pair of plastic stretchers out of Amazon. Quite cheap but they turned out to be of decent quality and strong. Will see what I can get with them.
As to a cobbler, I am still looking for one in Vancouver area. Google reviews are not very promising for any of them so far.

@suitforcourt is your in-house expert on quality cobblers across the nation. Reach out to him, or look for his cobbler review thread(s) here on SF. Good luck!

Vancouver cobbler? Quick Cobbler. Both Ron and Pat Nijdam are award winning cobblers. Ron is first Canadian to win SSIA Presidents Cup.

I have used them to rebuild 3 pairs. I endorse them.

 

[khanh010112]

Hey hey guys,
It’s been quite a while since I posted here. Here is a couple of picture of an Eaton shoes that I mentioned earlier. According to @suitforcourt, they were made by Dacks.
What interesting is this pair have a fluffy fur like under the tongue.
Sorry for the bad images, my room lighting is not very ideal.

 

[Jiqea]

Hey hey guys,
It’s been quite a while since I posted here. Here is a couple of picture of an Eaton shoes that I mentioned earlier. According to @suitforcourt, they were made by Dacks.
What interesting is this pair have a fluffy fur like under the tongue.
Sorry for the bad images, my room lighting is not very ideal.
View attachment 1326873

I have done quite a bit of snooping around with regard to Dacks history and production and I have not seen anything convincing suggesting that Dacks produced any private label shoes for Eaton's or any other merchandisers. They did produce unlabelled shoes for the Canadian military, although the coding makes it quite clear that they were Dack's. I am not saying this is impossible, but IMO it is not the case.

 

[Jiqea]

I was looking down at one of my shoe racks this morning and noticed the similarity in shape between my seal skins and my funky 1960's nylon mesh derbys. Sure enough they are both on the 87 last. It made me think we should document the different Dacks last, perhaps with standardized photos from agreed upon angles. Fun and useful.

 

[Jiqea]

I picked up a nice pair of what appear to be special order Mchales from the 70's today. They are a size 2E 13 and have factory installed Cat's Paws heels. One of the shoes has the McHale sock-liner while the other is marked Letellier, which is a high end shoe store in Ottawa that has been in business for over 100 years. While the McHale shoe was not as high a quality as the John McHale signature line, these shoes from the 70's are very well made. This six eyelet pair is 360 GYW with nice quality leather. I would say they are easily the equivalent of the Dacks Bespoke Quality shoes from the 70's, and better than most of the Custom Grades..

 

[Jiqea]

With February 14th not that far away, today I received this wonderful pair of early 1950's Valentine "Chief of Police" boots (10E).

The Valentine Shoe Co was founded by James Valentine in 1904 in Waterloo, Ontario. Valentine had learned the shoe making trade in his native Scotland before emigrating to Canada. In 1908 he acquired a partner, Jacob B. Martin,who had previously been the bookkeeper for a local shirtmaker and the firm is often referred to as Valentine & Martin after this time. Martin became sole owner after Valentine’s death in 1929 and in 1938 he sold the firm to Greb Shoe of Kitchener, which until then was primarily a boot maker.

According to a 2008 book, The Greb Story, Valentine and Martin Ltd. had 120 employees at the time and was a slightly larger company than Greb. In 1937 it had produced 272,000 pairs of shoes.Under Greb, the Waterloo plant continued to operate as Valentine and Martin until 1950 when it was vacated. Most of the workers moved to a plant at Breithaupt and St. Leger streets in Kitchener. It became known as Greb’s Valentine plant (pictured below), and is almost certainly where these boots were manufactured.

Valentine had a long history of manufacturing "Police Boots", stretching back as far as the 1920's. I have included two adverts below, the first two from 1929 and the second from 1941. Valentine shoes were actively marketed until the mid-1950's at which time Greb began to produce Hush Puppies under licence at the Valentine plant. With the immense popularity of Hush Puppies, Valentine faded into obscurity.

 

[Jiqea]

I have unearthed a little more information concerning the early days of the Scott-McHale company. By working my way through old issues of the Shoe and Leather Journal (1910-1923), I have determined that Francis Scott and William Chamberlain purchased a going concern in London Ontario in late 1915 or early 1916, which had formerly been called the Cook-Fitzgerald Co. Cook and Fitzgerald were makers of fine men's shoes and advertized regularly in the Shoe and Leather Journal from 1911 through 1914, but fell silent in 1915. They made the Astoria, Liberty and Tecumseh shoes, all lines that were offered by Scott-Chamberlain and later by Scott-McHale. I also found one photo of the elusive William Chamberlain, who was the CFO of Getty-Scott in Galt, and who was likely a silent partner in Scott-Chamberlain, who eventually sold his shares to John McHale in 1922. Mr. Chamberlain can be seen sitting to the left (our right) of Francis Scott in this photo of the Getty-Scott team in 1914. The Cook-Fitzgerald ads are also from 1914. I have also included the very first ad for Scott-Chamberlain from very early 1916.

 

[Jiqea]

Here is a little 1914 news article regarding a Toronto shoe maker who would have been a contemporary of Matthew Dack. Very cool.

 

[Paul902]

I have unearthed a little more information concerning the early days of the Scott-McHale company. By working my way through old issues of the Shoe and Leather Journal (1910-1923), I have determined that Francis Scott and William Chamberlain purchased a going concern in London Ontario in late 1915 or early 1916, which had formerly been called the Cook-Fitzgerald Co. Cook and Fitzgerald, makers of fine men's shoes, advertized regularly through 1914, but fell silent in 1915. They made the Astoria, Liberty and Tecumseh shoes, all lines that were offered by Scott-Chamberlain and later by Scott-McHale. I also found one photo of the elusive William Chamberlain, who was the CFO of Getty-Scott in Galt, and who was likely a silent partner in Scott-Chamberlain, who eventually sold his shares to John McHale in 1922. Mr. Chamberlain can be seen sitting to the left (our right) of Francis Scott in this photo of the Getty-Scott team in 1914. The Cook-Fitzgerald ads are also from 1914. I have also included the very first ad for Scott-Chamberlain from very early 1916.

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Those boots!!!!

Here is a little 1914 news article regarding a Toronto shoe maker who would have been a contemporary of Matthew Dack. Very cool.

View attachment 1328551

$30 for the Eaton Centre - wow!

 

[Jiqea]

Those boots!!!!



$30 for the Eaton Centre - wow!

Talking about Toronto shoe real estate, here is a brief note from 1914 regarding the Robert Dack factory at 80 King Street West in Toronto, along with a photo of that location today.

 

[Paul902]

Whilst Ottawa is not a bad town for finding vintage Canadian shoes, thrifting can still be a real drag. One time I remember having 15 store visits with not a thing to take home, and that was just as far back as I could count. Might have been longer. There is a lot of time, gasoline, and energy one will never get back. Like trout fishing, there are just enough gems to keep you in the game, though. Early this week, while covering the western territory (@Jiqea gets the more fertile east), I had some nice finds:

1. Started off with some modest 4-eyelet Dack's PTBs in a nice soft leather

2. Next up were these pebble grain McHale built Florsheim

3. Followed 15s later by these McHale calf Longwing Lites™

4. If that weren't enough for one day, hidden on the children's rack of a final store, were these 60's Dack's in a very rare sumptuous brown suede.

 

[Jiqea]

Whilst Ottawa is not a bad town for finding vintage Canadian shoes, thrifting can still be a real drag. One time I remember having 15 store visits with not a thing to take home, and that was just as far back as I could count. Might have been longer. There is a lot of time, gasoline, and energy one will never get back. Like trout fishing, there are just enough gems to keep you in the game, though. Early this week, while covering the western territory (@Jiqea gets the more fertile east), I had some nice finds:

1. Started off with some modest 4-eyelet Dack's PTBs in a nice soft leather
View attachment 1328704
2. Next up were these pebble grain McHale built Florsheim
View attachment 1328705
3. Followed 15s later by these McHale calf Longwing Lites™
View attachment 1328706
4. If that weren't enough for one day, hidden on the children's rack of a final store, were these 60's Dack's in a very rare sumptuous brown suede.
View attachment 1328707

You had a good day to be sure, but if I catch you on the east side of town again the crutches will slow you down.

To paraphrase Tom Waits, thrifting can crack your spirit, bang your head against the wall, two Cole Haans and you still have to choose. He might have actually said the night spots crack my spirit, bang my head against the wall, two dead ends and you still have to choose. But i know you understand.