Interesting ebay find (vintage shop clearence - Trickers. Loakes...) and eyelets question.

[Tangfastic]

After a long on and off search I found a classic looking 3 eyelet derby on ebay. The seller seems to have acquired the closing stock of a provincial shoe shop, and has several goodyear welted shoes by Northampton makers at a low price. They are from the late 80s so quite dated in style, but he sometimes seems to have a few Trickers pairs (a lizard skin loafer recently!). The shoes are all made for the shop in question, so it's unclear to what standard the shoes were made (ie they could have been made to a lower quality than standard to meet a lower price point for the shop).

I took a punt and just received this pair of Trickers:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VINTAGE-T...pypfLYT9MqCyshViW2J88%3D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

He puts the Trickers made shoes on at a premium, but other brands start arounf £40. The pair I received I am happy with and look forward to wearing frequently, but I cannot compare them to any of Trickers current output to guage relative quality as I don't own any other shoes by this maker. They are in a nice calf leather and the soles are channelled (I think this is standard for Trickers), but the thing that caught my eye on inspection was the lack of any eylets to protect the lace holes. To my rather inexpert eye the rest of the shoe is made to a high standard, but I haven't seen any quality shoes without eyelets in the lacings before. I think I'm going to get a cobbler to insert some just for peace of mind unless any experts have any comments?

Anyway, the seller may be worth keeping an eye on for those intersted in vintage never worn shoes or the odd bargain.

 

[GBR]

Not an attractive colour - reminds me of what we wore in the 1970s let alone 1980s!