Club Obi Wan

So my second question is....

My Alden boots are very red. Based on advice from this forum, I bought the Pecards brown tint waterproofing. I've applied a few coats, but the boots still seem very red. Will more coats turn them darker brown, or should I consider brown dye?

just wear them for a year. They will look great.

Mine showed up looking kind of orange. I ended up giving them two or three coats of polish with, I believe, Meltonian #93 (I'll have to check when I get home), which is Sandalwood, I think. It got them from orange to a sort of ruddy brown. I'll post pics when I get home tonight. Basically, it wasn't perfect, and it definitely doesn't match my jacket, but it's better than before.

I've thought about applying gradually darker polish as well, to try to basically stain them a darker brown, but I think you won't ever get them to be perfect unless you wear the heck out of 'em. I tend to only wear mine on occasion, so they're not particularly distressed.

If the pair you received are red, you got a pair of the old stock. The next iteration came out in the infamous orange. The current crop is brown.

Mine are the red color you speak of and I've had them for well over 6 years now. I've been using the Meletonian 'Brick' paste polish, as well as Pecards standard and brown dressing for years, and though still 'red', they've mellowed out quite a bit as time has passed by.

RegardsQ Michaelson

Actually, mine might have been orange. They were somewhere between red and orange when I got them. Using the brown Pecards dressing has toned them down alot, but they are certainly not brown shoes, which is the color described on the website. I bought them direct from Alden's internet site in July of '06, and I wear a common size, 9D, so it would surprise me if they were very old stock.
I've tried shoe polish and shoe cream in brown to tone them down further, but I find this flakes off easily and rubs off onto the inside of my pant cuffs. I'll wear them for a while, and use Pecards, and if I'm still unhappy with the color I'll dye them.
Kindest Regards

Understood, and agreed.

For some reason, Alden's idea of what the word 'brown' means seems to change from rotation to rotation.

Regards! Michaelson

Well... you've always have recourse to Magnoli Clothiers! The "Adventure Boot" is available in several shades of brown so everyone can be happy.

My friend and I ordered a pair of Aldens at the same time several years ago, they arrive together in the same box; mine were orange his were brown. To bad we didn't wear the same size... would have solved my problem, but not his.

Kind regards,
Magnoli

I will of course buy all future shoes from you, Magnoli, but I cant justify to my beautiful wife needing to buy a new pair until I wear these ones out.

However, she told me to save my pennies, because she thinks I will look snappy in the Venice pier suit, and I need to get some Indy style adventure pants and an adventure shirt. I hope very soon, Christmas maybe...

Ok, for illustration's sake, here's some shots of my boots. I've applied probably a grand total of about 4 coats of Meltonian #93 (Sandalwood) by this point. Out of the box I did three. All future coats have been for maintenance's sake. I could probably go for a darker chocolate brown, closer to the color of the coat, but I think they're fine like this basically.

I'm including shots taken with the flash and without so you can see the difference. With the flash, I think they look a bit redder. Without a flash, they're more brownish. These started out as the "pumpkin" colored boots, by the way, just so you see what you can do with 'em. You can probably even go darker than this if you START with a darker color, but don't take my word on that. This is, however, the effect I had with Meltonian 93. If I'd bought the newer brown kind, I'd use a different polish altogether.

There may be more views than necessary, but I figure better to have and not need than need and not have. Anyway, here goes.

















If you look at the toe and heel portions, you can see where rubbing has caused the original "pumpkin" color to bleed through a little. It's nowhere near as orange as it used to be, but it's still there to some degree. You can also see that they originally had white stiching, which I think the newer brown ones have too (based on pictures). A coat of polish will change that no problem.

Anyway, I think they look pretty good, but next to the jacket they look a LOT more orange. Not a huge deal if you're not that picky, but I think they could stand some distressing or possibly some darker polish to change their color to something matching the jacket.

Yeah, I think mine were the orange stock. The Pecards has really helped to turn them browner, and they look fine with most of my clothes, but some shades of khaki really accentuate the orange. But winter is approaching, and I might just wear them hunting in a few weeks. That will distress them a little.

Actually, long as we're on the subject, I've got two questions:

1.) Would you guys advise switching to a darker/browner polish to make my boots a bit darker brown, and a bit less "brick"?

2.) If so, what brands/colors would you recommend?

Basically I'm wondering if (and I'm assuming this is roughly screen accurate) there's some way to get the boots to be closer to the jacket color (which is a much darker brown) without somehow making them a horribly ugly shade. Anyone have any experience here?

I bought the "red" Aldens and use the Kiwi Brown shoe polish once a month. I Pecard them once a year just befor the "rainy season" with the brown. Over all they look nice and brown but I too have a problem with the heal section discoloration. My biggest complaint is the skin of the leather is comming off and nothing can be done. Went to two cobbbelers and all they could do was gue down and spray a coat of something to help. Had my Aldens less then three years and I need a new pair.

Cheers,
Jeff

How often do you wear them? For boots that aren't really work boots, heavy wear for three years is pretty darn good.

I ware my boots every day. They're the only shoe/boot I own right now. I had a pair of Doc Marttins that lasted me ten years with major abuse. I'll end up buying a new pair of Aldens for when I go some place nice and ware the every day ones the rest of the time.

Cheers,
Jeff

Yeah, for everyday wear, I doubt the Aldens are meant to last more than, say, 4-5 years. On the other hand, if you don't care what condition the uppers are in, and the soles don't have holes, you can wear 'em longer than that, I'm sure.

But they're a lot more dressy and less rugged than Doc Martins. Not surprising the Doc's lasted way longer.

The next time I buy a pair, I'd want to see them firsthand, to make sure the color's at least CLOSE to what I want.