Sherman Bros. Cautionary Tale

[jstlkng]

I ordered an Alden cap-toe shell cordovan boot from Sherman Brothers last winter. The picture on their web site showed a five eyelet, four speedlacer configuration. I asked to have the boot made with 9-eyelets and was assured I could have that. In May I received a call that the boot was in but that Alden had made it with speedlacers. Sherman Brothers assured me that their cobbler change out the speedlacers and that the results would look the same as if Alden had done the work. I agreed to go along with this - wrong move as you can see from the attached picture. I complained and asked for a refund but they wouldn't honor the request. They're convinced that their work is up to par. So my word of caution is go with stock items only if you purchase through Sherman Brothers.

 

[REguy]

They tried to convince me to use their cobbler for something too. Glad I passed.

 

[Journeyman]

In all fairness, given that the speedlace hooks pass right through the leather and that they are quite large, that's probably the best that their cobbler could do. By that, I mean that the cobbler could not do anything about the positioning of the laceholes, as the speedhooks had already made fairly large holes in the leather and so the positioning was already pre-determined.

Having said that, it's pretty clear that it doesn't look as good as the factory-made version and Sherman Bros should have been aware of that and shouldn't have told you that it would look the same as it would have if Alden had done the work from scratch.