What does one do with an afternoon off and only one tin of neutral shoe polish?

offener brief an rolf:

immer wieder wenn man spezielle themen zu schuhen aufruft kommt man auf ihre beiträge.

die waren vor jahren geistreich und witzig.

warum jetzt diese missgunst?

danke, gerd

Originally Posted by fritzl

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immer wieder wenn man spezielle themen zu schuhen aufruft kommt man auf ihre beiträge.

die waren vor jahren geistreich und witzig.

warum jetzt diese missgunst?

"Whenever one looks up a topic about shoes, one finds your postings.

Years ago, they were brilliant and witty.

Why now all this resentment/envy?"

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Sorry, I do not feel resentful against you or anyone else.

My postings, compared with others, are infrequent (you clocked up 3.5k in four years, I managed 2.5k in eight.)
and I’m sure I run very low on a snarko-meter.

In general, my postings are factual and very rarely personal. I have neiter goods nor politics to sell.

What made you think there is envy in my last posting/s?

Originally Posted by bengal-stripe

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All hides, be they first or third quality, have the same natural characteristics that the leather in certain sections of the animal is better than in other sections.

The best leather comes from the butt and the very best leather is cut near the spine of the animal. When you go further up into the shoulder, the leather is still firm and strong, but has increasing "˜growth' (stretch marks where the animal grew too quickly, resulting in light long lines within the skin). Once you go higher up into the neck, the leather gets more unpredictable, there might be firm spots sitting next to flabby, loose ones. The same thing applies to the belly, the further out you cut the lesser the leather quality.

It depends on the quality of work you want to produce, how much leather will end up on the "˜clicking' (cutting) room floor. For low-priced work you try to use almost any scrap, for high-priced work, you only go for the very best sections; that means you might get only one or two pairs out of a skin, opposed to four or five. In cheaper work you also try to hide the defects of loose leather texture by gluing a fabric onto the back to give the leather a firmer handle.

It is also important, that a particular pair of shoes has all it's pieces cut from the same skin. That is virtually always the case in bespoke (or one-offs), but not necessarily in large factories, where very often the cutting is done by "˜cookie-cutters'. (You cut all the toe caps out of one hide and all the vamps from another hide, That saves changing the cutting forms all the time.

From what I've read and seen (thread here), this has been my understanding.

Originally Posted by bengal-stripe

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In general, my postings are factual and very rarely personal.

Yup.

Originally Posted by Insight

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Where does one find Real Life friends who appreciate the finer nuances of shoe polishing?

Craigslist.

Originally Posted by bengal-stripe

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Sorry, I do not feel resentful against you or anyone else.

My postings, compared with others, are infrequent (you clocked up 3.5k in four years, I managed 2.5k in eight.)
and I'm sure I run very low on a snarko-meter.

In general, my postings are factual and very rarely personal. I have neiter goods nor politics to sell.

What made you think there is envy in my last posting/s?

you've sent pm's asked or unasked to people...

that's enough for me. sorry

thank you for the conversation.

Originally Posted by Wes Bourne

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Yup.

...are you sure about this???

Originally Posted by fritzl

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...are you sure about this???

Afaik and imo yes, on both counts, fwiw. How's that?

thanks bengal-stripe for that pix and precis, your posts on shoes are always welcome.
as an aside, rolf's postings have always been since i have been on sf, full of information and the occasional side jokes.

Originally Posted by fritzl

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....

my conclusion: people like you and me, who have taken part on various bespoke experiences, don't have to agree about their personal preferences, but have some common feelings about the whole thing.

for the op: sterling found, and i can tell ya, by chance a pair he loves. meanwhile he is participating in "operation paprika" in a way i never thought of and this means a lot to me. perfect match comes to my mind.

let me be honest:

this pair is "way better" than his first pair. so he is on the learning curve, what he really wants.

let me know, what you think about this...
ok fritzl.. yes, stylistic choices are personal like the shoes that you are selling.

the leather of the op's shoes you linked looks in a better state than the one on this thread. but as bengal has noted, these shoes seem to have inordinate creasing. in this particular shoe there seems to be creasing in the inner waist and on the opposite side of the shoe.. also, did the edging tool slip at the heel as there is a diagonal mark.

sterling - g, yes, it could be the natural state of the hide, and fritzl speculated that the maker may have used the less desirable parts of the skin that gives rise to that impression. i do not understand what you mean by a skin being less 'sealed' than modern leathers. fritzl claims that it is top grade french boxcalf dating about 10yrs or less, i have shoes 20 yrs old made of french boxcalf by french makers that do not exhibit this 'sealed' look you speak of. i consider a 'sealed' skin to be something akin to church's bookbinder

Originally Posted by Wes Bourne

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Afaik and imo yes, on both counts, fwiw. How's that?

it's up to you. thank you for coming by.

Black shoes are underrated on this board. Yet it would be wrong to rate them for the same reasons that most non-SF people rate them.

Originally Posted by T4phage

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ok fritzl.. yes, stylistic choices are personal like the shoes that you are selling.

the leather of the op's shoes you linked looks in a better state than the one on this thread.

honestly, i am not used talking to amateurs, and i've been really ambitious, anyway

we have orders in our pockets. the rest is history
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you guys suck

Originally Posted by fritzl

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honestly, i am not used talking to amateurs, and i've been really ambitious, anyway...

thank you then for climbing down from your pole to speak to us

Originally Posted by fritzl

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....
we have orders in our pockets. the rest is history

i am happy for you

Originally Posted by fritzl

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you guys suck





ysobutthurt?

Sterling, I like the shine you managed, with just the neutral polish at hand. Indeed, the shoes become more interesting because of it. The effort you put in clearly shows. One can only wonder how much different or better the result would have been with your full arsenal of polishing materials at hand.

On the topic of the leather quality, it is indeed hard to judge from pictures. The words of Fritzl's leather expert seem to indicate it could be that the hide used came from a more mature calf (more growth lines) or cut more from the edges of the skin (idem). Although there are certain objective guidelines on leather quality, which Bengal-Stripe provided, all the qualities are equally suitable for making shoes. The question of whether or not the leather has more growth lines is very important depends on the (subjective) taste and requirements of the wearer in the end. The most important thing is that the wearer is happy with the look and feel. As has been said, some of the folks here do feel that the specific lines in the leather are not to their taste. Why they are there remains a topic of speculation. The possible explanations are not limited to skin use.

Now, does this look detract from the quality of the shoes, or is it a part of the story that comes with these shoes? I feel that question is implicit in and at the heart of the undercurrents and hostility in this and other topics where Fritzl and Bengal-stripe meet. I am not sure how this can be solved. I do feel it's a shame, because you guys are both knowledgeable members.

Originally Posted by fritzl

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i am not used talking to amateurs

And you are a leading authority based on?...

Originally Posted by fritzl

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we have orders in our pockets. the rest is history

Will you complete them?

Originally Posted by fritzl

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you guys suck

Great sales tactic. You should peddle your wares to your buddies over on FNB.

I'm finding this thread interesting in that I suspect it highlights SF's tenuous relationship with traditional artisanship. All pure speculation on my part, so feel free to skip ahead to the next post, but ...

For all our talk about how much we value the traditional manufacturing methods, we tend to grade clothing on an unforgiving scale. Fritzl is selling traditional Hungarian shoemaking, as I understand it, and I doubt many Hungarian shoemakers were ever in a position to toss out 3/4 of their available leather. (I doubt many shoemakers anywhere were in a position to toss out 3/4 of their available leather.) As such, I would expect that shoes made in Hungary, in the traditional manner, by an individual shoemaker, would typically have been far more rustic than those cranked out today for connoisseurs by a firm such as EG. Both Green and Lobb are engaged in an arms race of refinement, and many of the qualitative improvements we talk about here are really just aesthetic detailing. Is it fair to fault other shoemakers who exist outside of that? If the paprika leather is more rustic looking, so what? Does it perform less well or make the shoe less durable? I don't know, but I doubt it. No more so than a Lobb outlasts an AE.

The appeal of the paprika, as I see it, is that it represents something other, a traditional way of doing things that is now almost lost. How well the paprika represents that, I don't know. But I wouldn't buy paprika wanting flawless modern craftsmanship in exquisite materials, but specifically because it isn't that.

Anyway, just some thoughts. (No insult to Mr. Kiss' work intended, Fritzl.)