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Coated leather shoes... inferior?

I recently bought some Florsheim ComfortTech shoes for work. They were fairly inexpensive, under $100. I have a pair or two of Florsheim imperial shoes that I bought a few years ago that have aged really well, but there's something off about this pair. There's a few things I've noticed about the leather on these shoes that I found reallly weird and was wondering if anyone had similar experiences.

- The leather is kind of a coated leather. It feels almost rubbery or plasticky to the touch on the outside. It is real leather, I think it's got some kind of shiny coating on it, however. It is NOT patent, however.
- When breaking these shoes in, they were some of the most crazily uncomfortable shoes ever. Now that they're broken in, the places where they have stretched out a bit, you can clearly see the brown leather through the black, as if the dye job did not extend past the very surface.
- They don't hold a shine for crap. My Allen Edmonds and Florsheim imperial shoes can hold a shine for a good 6 or 7 wears without looking too bad. My shine on this looks like crap after two days, and it takes a crazy amount of spit shine to get anything even sort of decent out of them. They basically don't have a shine on the sides because of this (too much effort, and can't seem to get it to come out).
- The leather looks vaguely like it's bubbling in the creases. It's sort of hard to explain, it just doesn't look like its wearing in the creases the same as any shoe I've ever had before.

So did I get a bum pair, or is this just what I should expect from $80 shoes these days? Anyone have any advice on how to shine these things decently?
 
Sounds like poorly executed corrected grain leather. Basically they take split grain leather and sand it down to remove any imperfections, then they stamp in a "grain pattern" and dye it. With your pair it sound like they did a pretty poor job with the dye and used a compromised hide. In the future don't buy that sort of thing, it will cost you less in the long run to buy quality.
 
Yep thats what passes for corrected leather these days its more than likely has some sort of polymer coating on it.
 
I think you answered your own question.

Doc Martins have the same coating on some (all) of their boots. A pile of horse dung if you ask me.

Oh - shine them by throwing them in the trash and buying new shoes. A good excuse for new shoes! :)
 
Are you sure they are leather??

I only have one pair of Florsheim shoes and they cost a lot more than $80!

I polish mine and keep them for "best" and they fit like a glove.

Seem to be very different to the shoes you are describing.


Cheers
 
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Miner, they are actually these shoes: http://www.florsheim.com/shop/style/17080.html

I guess they were $110 not 80, but IIRC they were on sale when I bought them. I too have another pair of florsheim, but they're under the imperial label, and have better leather and construction (welted leather soles, and so on). The leather also holds a decent shine :) But I don't think I will again buy a lower-end Florsheim model.

I would use this as an excuse to buy a new pair of shoes, but only have a few months left in the military and am not really interested in buying a $250 pair of plain derbies :-/
 
The quality of Florsheim shoes has taken a dramatic dive over the past 7-10 years. My guess is that it has a lot to do with the company's "restructuring" in 2002. They're basically all made in India now.
 
To echo that, I've had very poor luck with all of the lower-end Florsheims that I've owned they never seem to last long or hold a good shine. My 10 year old imperials on the other hand are gems in both regard.
 
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