friendlygoz
Distinguished Member
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2016
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Huh... the John Lobb sales guy knew a lot about shoes, and he was pretty confused. He though tthey were blake stiched until he looked at the insole. They he though that maybe the stitching was under the insole. If they have any sort of stitching, BY, blake, or otherwise, there are no signs of it.Well, I dunno what they are from an uppers standpoint, but the construction is interesting. The insole is a solid, thick, high-quality leather insole like what you’d see in a GYW shoe, and there’s no sign of a Blake stitch visible on the insole or sole. The interior construction and materials are certainly not that of a cheap glued shoe.
Yet, I don’t think these are Blake (hidden channel or otherwise), I think they are a GYW shoe sans-rapid outsole stitch. It might be an optical illusion, but it looks like there is a welt/sole separation (since bonwelts weren’t a thing back then, provided my eyes are correct, you can assume that welt is attached to something). For a while in the 70’s and early 80’s (in my estimation), a few manufacturers (FootJoy being one, IIRC) experimented with simply using adhesive to attach the outsole to the welt. This allowed them to trim the welt very tightly, since they didn’t have to worry about the outsole stitch. In theory, they can still be resoled by separating the sole and welt with a solvent and then gluing a new on with whatever space-age goop was the latest in chemical miracles. In the right hands, they could even be recrafted with a new welt, and then outsole stitched like any other GYW.
IIRC, I recall @davidVC even had a pair, such as these, start suffering from welt/sole separation during his work day.
It’s also possible I hallucinated all of this due to chemical inhalation during last years restoration challenge, so take it for what it’s worth.