Funny Story With Colorful Cobbler

[Clintonjl]

Hello all,

So I wanted to share a kind of funny situation I experienced today. I live in Canada and ordered a pair of Crown Northampton sneakers with Horween leather uppers (Chromexcel). Long story short, they were too small. So I took them to a cobbler to have them stretched out. Came to pick them up today. This cobbler is an older armenian gentleman who is very intense, and often cut me off.

Anyways, he asked me how much money I paid for the shoes, and he tells me I got ripped off and am just paying for the name- you know, because Crown is super popular of course. He tells me the leather is poor quality, and I tried to explain to him it's from the Horween tannery and I don't think it's that bad- and am promptly cut off as he tells me the uppers are worth no more than $5, and the lower part of the shoe $2.50. He tells me he used to work for Birks and make $3000+ dollar handbags and that he's made $5000+ shoes and that all the boots he makes are of pristine quality and only handwork. (To be fair, they did look nice)

So I ask this guy how to discern quality leather, what are good tanneries to look out for? He explains to me to never look at a name and simply go by feel. I ask, well, what am I looking for when feeling the leather? Softness? Stretch? Pores? Like, what exactly is it I should be looking for. He tells me it depends on the type of application and before I can ask more questions he goes into the backroom and tells me he has work to do and leaves me to pay for the job with the girl at the front.

Anyways, I'm fairly certain Crown is fine quality and he was just trying to get me to buy his goods, but I got a kick out of it. Let me know your thoughts below! And if you've had similar experiences, please share!

 

[Harold falcon]

Hello all,

So I wanted to share a kind of funny situation I experienced today. I live in Canada and ordered a pair of Crown Northampton sneakers with Horween leather uppers (Chromexcel). Long story short, they were too small. So I took them to a cobbler to have them stretched out. Came to pick them up today. This cobbler is an older armenian gentleman who is very intense, and often cut me off.

Anyways, he asked me how much money I paid for the shoes, and he tells me I got ripped off and am just paying for the name- you know, because Crown is super popular of course. He tells me the leather is poor quality, and I tried to explain to him it's from the Horween tannery and I don't think it's that bad- and am promptly cut off as he tells me the uppers are worth no more than $5, and the lower part of the shoe $2.50. He tells me he used to work for Birks and make $3000+ dollar handbags and that he's made $5000+ shoes and that all the boots he makes are of pristine quality and only handwork. (To be fair, they did look nice)

So I ask this guy how to discern quality leather, what are good tanneries to look out for? He explains to me to never look at a name and simply go by feel. I ask, well, what am I looking for when feeling the leather? Softness? Stretch? Pores? Like, what exactly is it I should be looking for. He tells me it depends on the type of application and before I can ask more questions he goes into the backroom and tells me he has work to do and leaves me to pay for the job with the girl at the front.

Anyways, I'm fairly certain Crown is fine quality and he was just trying to get me to buy his goods, but I got a kick out of it. Let me know your thoughts below! And if you've had similar experiences, please share!

 

[Clintonjl]

View attachment 1416595

Hello Harold,

This is a tad harsh, don't you think?

I'm new to this forum and don't quite understand all the ins and outs. I sincerely don't want to leave a poor impression and would greatly appreciate being told why my post is bad. I genuinely don't understand where I went wrong here and have no qualms taking the post down if I can see why it's bad.

 

[Harold falcon]

My mistake. I thought you were a robot.