Florsheim Royal Imperial Wingtips - Remakes or originals?

I cannot tell for certain if these Florsheim shoes are vintage or of fairly recent manufacture. Any ideas?


Shoes in Question:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWN:IT&ih=002


Vintage Pair of same style for reference:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWA:IT&ih=007

The first ones are very nice. They look like originals, though the heal looks rather modern!!

Originally Posted by neyus

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The first ones are very nice. They look like originals, though the heal looks rather modern!!

I agree. The heel/sole look modern. No welting that I can see. But the shoe looks exactly like the vintage pair based on the uppers. And the box....well who knows? Looks old but may just be the style if these are reproductions.

Hopefully someone here has come across these before or can piece it together.

The leather looks very shiny and seems to crease in odd ways. I'm guessing they're remakes/of later vintage, though I'm no expert on Florsheims.

I think the first ones are very old, or, as old as other vintage models on ebay. As an aside, in my opinion, it is unclear how old the "oldest" Florsheims on ebay tend to be, I think they are more like from the 80s, while a lot of sellers claim they are from the 60s or even older.

In any case, vintage florsheims have a variety of heel patterns. Here is a similar one:





$31 is a sweet deal for those

Greekgeek, are you the winner? Because if you are, you got yourself one hell of a deal. Those are indeed vintage, early 90s at the newest. It's very hard to date Florsheim shoes as heels/soles etc. were never consistent. A couple of indicators, though: (1.) the sewn-on tag on the shoe bags was discontinued some time in the 90s; (2.) the fonts on the box are not fonts used by large companies in the last dozen years or so (looks 80s to me, but it's hard to tell); and (3.) the gold-stamped "Royal Imperial" insignia with the needle was discontinued before I started selling shoes, which was 1995. Besides, Royal Imperial was phased out in, I think, 1997. Enjoy your score!

I really wanted those shoes.

Thanks for all the great info guys, you've really made my day.

Originally Posted by Teacher

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Greekgeek, are you the winner? Because if you are, you got yourself one hell of a deal. Enjoy your score!

Teacher, thank you for the great info on dating these. I really enjoy hearing about the tell tale signs of items history/quality.

Yes I am the high bidder. It is interesting. I marked the shoes early with a $35 bid (a bit high, I know, but I was eager and assumed they would go much much higher). Then, after eyeing them all week w/o a second bid I was convinced they would be sniped.

So I sniped myself with an atomic bomb sized bid but got them for less than the original bid. I was elated but quickly became suspicious that they may be new stock. Some garbage shopworn Florsheims with no box I had on last month sold for $50.......that is eBay for you.....and thus this this post!

Originally Posted by Tarmac

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I think the first ones are very old, or, as old as other vintage models on ebay.
In any case, vintage florsheims have a variety of heel patterns. Here is a similar one:

[$31 is a sweet deal for those

Thank you Tarmac. I was only familiar with soles similar to your first pic (sans the slant rubber) and the all rubber heeled lower line soles.

Originally Posted by neyus

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I really wanted those shoes.

I will keep that in mind if they do not fit.