What kind of construction are these Frye boots?

[Sinbios]

This is a pair of Frye Jacob engineer boots I bought which the Frye website claims has "Goodyear welt construction". I've been burned by fake welt and stitching on Frye boots before, so I emailed customer service to confirm these are indeed Goodyear welted. They responded that they confirmed with the production team that yes, the Jacob line is Goodyear welted.

Now that I've received these boots, I'm beginning to have doubts again, since the stitch density on the welt and the stitch density on the sole don't match up - it's 2 stitch holes on top for each hole on the bottom on the outer set of stitches. I'm also not clear what the inner set of stitches on the bottom of the sole is for, those look like they might be in the right place for Blake stitches.

The only way I can think of for these to be Goodyear welted is if somehow they are alternating between the inner and outer set of holes on the bottom, but I don't think a machine exists that can do that? And even then the inner set of stitch holes don't match up with the holes on the welt either.

Or maybe what looks like the welt is actually a faux welt glued on top of the Rapid stitches on a Blake/Rapid constructed shoe? Seems kind of pointless to me but is that a known practice?

Does anyone have a good idea of how this shoe might have been constructed? Was Frye mistaken in informing me that this is a Goodyear welted shoe? I'm so tempted to just rip the whole thing apart to find out exactly what's going on inside.

Let me know if anyone wants more detailed pictures.

 

[Sinbios]

I tried sticking a pin through a hole on the outer set of stitching to test whether it's simply pre-stitched and then glued onto the midsole, and it went all the way through all 3 layers easily. In some spots it was able to come out the other side of the welt. So I believe the bottom most layer is stitched to the midsole at least.

I'm so confused by what's going on here, everything would make sense if only the stitch densities matched.

 

[breakaway01]

@Nick V. might be able to say more. I am not an expert in shoe construction but that does not look like a GYW to me either.

 

[Sinbios]

Here's a picture of the seam between the welt and the rand - I think the silvery stuff is some glue sitting in the gap between the rand and the upper.

 

[Phileas Fogg]

I remember reading once that the Frye Engineer boots are Blake constructed.

 

[sam67]

can anyone help me ID these?