Vintage Dress shoe appreciation, tips, maintenance and advice

[Nealjpage]

Florsheim Imperial monkstrap chukka boots and white FootJoy saddle Dresswalkers. Neither are my size but I'll throw 'em on eBay and use any winnings for something that fits me.

 

[Joe Wohkittel]

In the year or so since I got my pair, I have only seen one other pair of City Clubs on eBay. I think they all fell apart/wore out (same reason you don't see many vintage Thom McAns).

I've seen some very nice Thom McAn shoes. If you go back far enough in time, brands that had gone to pot by 1970 did in fact make nice shoes. Even brands that were not the best in their heyday often made shoes that, by today's standards, are very good quality. This is another pair I saw on ebay years ago, but I didn't save as many pictures. When I started collecting, I saved many pictures from ebay auctions and tracked sale prices to get a sense for the market.

 

[friendlygoz]

PSA for any 9C brothers. AE Lloyd from their golden era. If these were a tad wider I’d be all over them.

Allen Edmonds Lloyd Wingtip Oxfords Size 9C | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Allen Edmonds Lloyd Wingtip Oxfords Size 9C at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

 

[Nealjpage]

PSA for any 9C brothers. AE Lloyd from their golden era. If these were a tad wider I’d be all over them.

Allen Edmonds Lloyd Wingtip Oxfords Size 9C | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Allen Edmonds Lloyd Wingtip Oxfords Size 9C at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

Those are really nice. The seven eyelet design is sharp. I'm surprised that they're drill lined, though.

 

[meister]

Vintage City Club monkstraps for the 4th of July weekend. I don't think the materials are all that great quality, and the toe is a little more square than I'd normally tolerate, but I keep coming back to these because they're just stupid comfortable. "12E" View attachment 1418678

This is an example of what they produced when Marilyn Monroe was boosting them...

 

[wasmisterfu]

At one time, City Club made fantastic shoes. I saved these pictures from a 2013
ebay auction. They sold fro $200. Had they been my size, I would have bid more. They may have gone downhill earlier than other brands, but the quality here seems quite good.

They’re about 10-15 years earlier than mine. However, there’s wonkiness going on with those shoes. First, just like on mine, the leather is thin; second that’s almost certainly not a blind channel bottom stitch, it’s a 270 welt to the midsole, then the outsole is cemented to the insole. City Club was a volume “discount” brand: they made a shoe that looked good, for less. But the less came at a cost - a shoe that was never quite what it appeared to be (even if they were better a decade or two earlier).

 

[wasmisterfu]

Those are really nice. The seven eyelet design is sharp. I'm surprised that they're drill lined, though.

Uhhhhhhhhhh... something bad happened to those 0667 Lloyd’s. I think they got hit with a bunch of brown shoe polish. I have a very low-wear example of the same shoes (same production year), and they should look like this (the color may look a little saturated, but that’s because I took the photo with a sunset coming through the window):

Anyhoo, they’re supposed to be a tan pin-grain, not brown.

Edit: AE was still doing drill linings on a lot of shoes up until they went all leather a few years later. Also, this version of the Lloyd was made using the MacGregor pattern pulled over the 97 last. Even though the MacGregor ceased production 6 years earlier, they reused the exact same pattern, stitch for stitch, brogue punch and medallion, including the 7 eyelets.

 

[Nealjpage]

Uhhhhhhhhhh... something bad happened to those 0667 Lloyd’s. I think they got hit with a bunch of brown shoe polish. I have a very low-wear example of the same shoes (same production year), and they should look like this (the color may look a little saturated, but that’s because I took the photo with a sunset coming through the window):

Anyhoo, they’re supposed to be a tan pin-grain, not brown.

Edit: AE was still doing drill linings on a lot of shoes up until they went all leather a few years later. Also, this version of the Lloyd was made using the MacGregor pattern pulled over the 97 last. Even though the MacGregor ceased production 6 years earlier, they reused the exact same pattern, stitch for stitch, brogue punch and medallion, including the 7 eyelets.

Looks like a job for acetone.

 

[wasmisterfu]

I've seen some very nice Thom McAn shoes. If you go back far enough in time, brands that had gone to pot by 1970 did in fact make nice shoes. Even brands that were not the best in their heyday often made shoes that, by today's standards, are very good quality. This is another pair I saw on ebay years ago, but I didn't save as many pictures. When I started collecting, I saved many pictures from ebay auctions and tracked sale prices to get a sense for the market.

Pictures aren’t the whole story, because many of these brands had excellent execution, but not particarly good material quality. Don’t confuse high-SPI stitching and pretty styling details, with durable quality materials. Brands like Florsheim, 50’s and earlier French Shriner & Urner, Bostonian and other “20 dollar” shoes, have a significant number of survivors, while brands like Thom McAn have virtually none, given they had 10x + production numbers. Also, Thom McAn has a range of shoes that they sold, some good, some not so good (they were among the first to adopt non-leather insoles). Most were built to a price point. Only the top-end examples tend to survive.

 

[wasmisterfu]

Looks like a job for acetone.

 

[Joe Wohkittel]

They’re about 10-15 years earlier than mine. However, there’s wonkiness going on with those shoes. First, just like on mine, the leather is thin; second that’s almost certainly not a blind channel bottom stitch, it’s a 270 welt to the midsole, then the outsole is cemented to the insole. City Club was a volume “discount” brand: they made a shoe that looked good, for less. But the less came at a cost - a shoe that was never quite what it appeared to be (even if they were better a decade or two earlier).

This is very interesting, thank you! I have a pair squirreled away somewhere, but had no idea that their attractiveness was skin deep.

 

[Joe Wohkittel]

Pictures aren’t the whole story, because many of these brands had excellent execution, but not particarly good material quality. Don’t confuse high-SPI stitching and pretty styling details, with durable quality materials. Brands like Florsheim, 50’s and earlier French Shriner & Urner, Bostonian and other “20 dollar” shoes, have a significant number of survivors, while brands like Thom McAn have virtually none, given they had 10x + production numbers. Also, Thom McAn has a range of shoes that they sold, some good, some not so good (they were among the first to adopt non-leather insoles). Most were built to a price point. Only the top-end examples tend to survive.

I agree, almost all the Thom McAn's out their are poorly made and of course there were fashion-oriented brands years ago as their are now. That stated, my experience has been that a 70-year-old fashion-oriented shoe is (generally) a nice shoe by modern production standards. However, my opinion on what constitutes a "nice" shoe no doubt more liberal than that of other folks.

As for how surviving translates into quality, I feel the correlation is far from perfect. A pair of 50s Edwin Clapps would never wear like the 93602, but it is (arguibly) a better shoe. Likewise, my favorite pair of Bally cap-toes wore out long ago, but the pair of Park Avenues I bought around the same time are still solid. My opinion is that the Ballys were a better shoe, but they were built to serve a different purpose.

 

[Joe Wohkittel]

While searching for the pair of City Club shoes I vaguely recall owing, I stumbled across these and figured I'd add them to the recent discussion on AEs. From the 50s or 60s I suppose. I'll have to look through their old catalogs.

Followup: Looks like they are pre ~1962 font change and are in catalogs going back at least to the mid-1950s.

 

[Nealjpage]

While searching for the pair of City Club shoes I vaguely recall owing, I stumbled across these and figured I'd add them to the recent discussion on AEs. From the 50s or 60s I suppose. I'll have to look through their old catalogs.

Followup: Looks like they are pre ~1962 font change and are in catalogs going back at least to the mid-1950s.

Beautiful shoes!

 

[friendlygoz]

Uhhhhhhhhhh... something bad happened to those 0667 Lloyd’s. I think they got hit with a bunch of brown shoe polish. I have a very low-wear example of the same shoes (same production year), and they should look like this (the color may look a little saturated, but that’s because I took the photo with a sunset coming through the window):

Anyhoo, they’re supposed to be a tan pin-grain, not brown.

Edit: AE was still doing drill linings on a lot of shoes up until they went all leather a few years later. Also, this version of the Lloyd was made using the MacGregor pattern pulled over the 97 last. Even though the MacGregor ceased production 6 years earlier, they reused the exact same pattern, stitch for stitch, brogue punch and medallion, including the 7 eyelets.

The seller claims that he cleaned all of the all the wax polish off with acetone, cleaned them with saddle soap, and hit them with various Saphir products. I wonder how if he did some sort of patina. Yours are amazing. I want a pair of these. My collection is shortwing deficient. That’s a thing you know.