Viberg Service Boot BCT

A testament to the friendships built through SDP, a fellow member proxied these for me at the last sample sale, with a caveat: I provided him with Miami-based tasties like croquetas and pastelitos in lieu of a proxy fee. I was on the fence about these as I had just bought some boots in a very similar shade of brown, but a picture of Shoenabler’s pair shoe-enabled me into pulling the trigger and putting these into the contest. As I donned these every other day for six months, I spammed “TPR good” in the discord on a regular basis to dispel the stigma about the peculiar coating of this tannage. Personally, I found it visually interesting how the TPR lightens in points of flex, kind of like a “reverse pull-up” that gives away the areas that wear most. I did have to get the tips of the ridgeway fixed by my cobbler, who was able to get them back to me just in time for my first trip to my homeland of Italy in more than 5 years. There, they were without a doubt the MVP’s as I lugged my own and my girlfriend’s suitcases across every known train station and bus stop between Rome, Florence and Milan. They did not fail me as I was walking down the soggy marble steps of the Duomo and they looked all the better for wear when they got back to the US. I love how, despite having been through the ringer, I am able to get a quasi-cordovan shine with a little brushing and cream polish. Though I find myself often marveling at the variations of brown that the TPR, scuffs, and teacore effect display even after some TLC, my favorite aspect of how these have aged is the toe collapse that happened unexpectedly in Italy. While on one hand I can’t pull these off as quasi-formal like when they were new, on the other they now definitely have more character. I think that now that the dome is over, I will get some black kilties and switch out the waxed laces for rawhide.