I bought these when I turned 18 in 1993. They were made in my hometown of Dexter, Maine, and I bought them at the original factory outlet (~$70) which was part of the #1 Dexter Shoe factory on Water Street. In late 2015 I stepped in a puddle and instantly felt icy cold water on my foot; my beloved boots had finally torn open (which can be seen in the picture) after 22 years of regular wear.
The "ROF" leather which came from Hartland Tannery in Hartland, Maine, was waterproof from the tannery, and those boots remained completely waterproof until 1999, when after a long walk in 3 or 4 inches of slush, I noticed some water seeping through. They got less and less waterproof as time went on. I never re-treated them, though I wish I had've; maybe they would have lasted even longer. I still wear them occasionally (only in dry weather now), but not too often because I don't want to make that tear worse.
The leather is soft, tumbled, full-grain cowhide, and they are fully leather-lined. The "Armortred" soles are tough as a bag of badgers; you can see in the picture that there's still a fair amount of sole left.
I saw the #3 rule for this subreddit, but it doesn't make any sense for a forum like this. Once a product has lasted long enough to be considered "BIFL" material, what are the chances of it still being available for purchase? And even if it is, what are the chances of the current version being made as well as the decades-old version? Dexter Shoe boots are still being manufactured, but they are all fake leather, made-in-China junk now. After nearly 50 years of manufacturing in their namesake town of Dexter, Maine, Dexter Shoe packed up and moved to China in 2002 (I was working there at the time).
So, if you find some of these boots on e.g., eBay or whatever, the newest they can possibly be is 15 years old. There was a new-in-the-box pair of them on eBay last I checked (does that count as still being available for sale?), the "nubuck" versions instead of smooth leather like mine, in size 12 (not my size). I don't need any of those though, because during the two and a half years I worked at the Dexter Shoe factory, I got two brand new pairs for free, albeit the nubuck versions, because they had stopped making the smooth leather versions by the time I started working there in 2000. If I could find a new-in-box pair of the smooth leather version, in size 10, I'd buy them in a heartbeat. But in the meantime I'm mostly wearing one of those two nubuck pairs I got in 2001/2002 and had remained new-in-the-box until 2015 - http://ift.tt/2njfMH4
Submitted March 12, 2017 at 04:17PM by MaximRecoil http://ift.tt/2mQ1jor
