Jim Green

[Edward]

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I love the toeshape on these. Very 30s design to my eye - big, round toebox with plenty of room.

Maybe it's unique to the subculture of the working class poor in The USA. Work boots. Without any specific definition as to what kind of work. Any kind of work that may come your way. You needed to have a pair of boots. Whether it was a production plant or warehouse that needed extra labor to fill a big order. Or a large construction job where they needed more hands to do unskilled labor. Maybe the local garage needed a second pair of hands. O a neighborhood bakery needed an extra person who could lift 50 pound sacks of flour. We did all of the work around our own homes, from painting, to tree trimming, to unclogging drain pipes.

At a time it would have been a norm to have "work boots" that could be made to look respectable as they might have been the only footwear the owner had, so had to do double duty for work and home. Or they had a pair 'for best' that would be rotated into daily wear when the current daily pair went beyond repair. (My dad did that with his daily shoes for years, I think still does. One pair to wear day to day, the other pair were worn exclusively to church on a Sunday morning. When the daily pair finally died, the Sunday pair were broken in sufficiently to go to daily wear with no issues. Then a new Sunday pair was bought to continue the cycle.

I see the desert boot style Vellies on Amazon for about £137, which I'm mulling over now...

 

[Fifty150]

I love the toeshape on these. Very 30s design to my eye - big, round toebox with plenty of room.

The JG last is supposed to be a 3E, or triple wide size. Here it is on my Razorback. Not Sub Saharan African Bush. Just a USA DIRT LOT. Some will complain about clown shoes.

I see the desert boot style Vellies on Amazon for about £137, which I'm mulling over now...

The USA dot com net address has a sale section. The USA Amazon site has sales on Black Friday and Amazon Prime Day with discounted Jim Green.

Politics. UK prices are higher. USA and South Africa has something called The AGOA Trade Agreement.

UK gets the Razorback and African Ranger in black. But USA gets lower prices. I bought the Numzaan at $149. $100 off the USA list price of $249.

 

[TLW '90]

You can buy a sole press. It won't take up much space. Just put it in the corner of your room.

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Bed Bath & Beyond has a basic hydraulic press. You could build a sole press out of it.

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A modern sole press would take up much more room in my shop than I have to spare for something I'd need so infrequently , and as far as a hydraulic press goes I can get a perfectly suitable example from Harbor freight for half that price if not less to build one out of if I wanted.
I could also build a small sole press for under $150 using a bottle jack if need be.
That's something I might eventually think about doing.
Ultimately I'd much rather just find a vintage screw type sole press, they're bulletproof and much smaller than a modern sole press, but I'm afraid shipping costs would probably be too high.

 

[Fifty150]

big, round toebox with plenty of room

I have Jim Green boots in 3 of their lasts. From left to right, you can compare their equivalent of D width, 2E width, and 3E width. According to Jim Green, the boot on the left, Numzaan, uses an almond shaped toe design to give it a dressier appearance. The boot in the middle is a Steel Toe Cap, or STC last. The boot on the right is the JG last.

This is the information Jim Green has posted online: