 In the 1950s, there were at least 200 boot-making businesses in Australia, making boots mainly in Ballarat, Geelong, Goldburn, Hobart, Perth and Adelaide. Those centres had them established at the turn of the 19th century from the need for boots in Goldfield's towns and near agricultural centres. Some of them continue today, but they're down to double figures. Most of them have sent production overseas because of the loss of trade tariffs, government, industry support and the loss of skills as younger people just don't want to take up the career. This pair is from Australia's oldest boot company. Keep watching and I'll tell you how proud I am of them, but today, how you going? Welcome to Bootlossophy and my name is Tech. I acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands I live and work on, the Wajap people. Today, I'm taking a look at these Aussie Chelsea boots called the Gringo from Baxter Footwear, Australia's oldest boot company. They were established in 1850 and have gone up and down in the last few decades, but they're still here. I'll take a look at the history and dive into these boots called the Gringo. Interesting name that sets a theme as you will see and I'll tell you what I like and don't like about them. This is one summary section at the end of the video that you don't want to miss, the pros and cons section. Watch to the end. Okay, looking at the style, this is clearly a Chelsea boot. As you know by now, the Chelsea boot with its distinctive goring panels was first designed by Joseph Sparks Hall, Queen Victoria's bootmaker in 1837. Since then, they became a smart riding boot in London during her son, King Edward VII's reign, and were exported to the colonies, especially India, South Africa and Australia, as elastic-sided paddock work boots for riding and working on cattle and sheep stations. Back in England, they rediscovered their style when the 60s pop groups like the Beatles wore them as part of their costume and from that era got their name Chelsea boots from where the swinging 60s began in that suburb. In Australia, the style has always been a work boot as characterised by popular Australian brands like Bloodstone and Redback, and in fact, as they were first intended for use in RM Williams' designs, until the 1980s when RMs became iconic as the Australian boot and millionaires were wearing them with their suits in boardrooms and trading exchanges. This Baxter gringo boot has all the characteristics with a twist. It is six inches high at the shaft. It has a block heel and standard goring panels. It's made of three pieces of distressed leather, the vamp piece and the two rear pieces leading to the seams under the goring panels. I'll leave links to their websites below. The twist is that as hinted by the name, the last looks like the last of a cowboy boot, especially from the top, with an almond shaped toe that looks like a cowboy round toe boot. The last also has a looser cowboy fit in the heel and the waist to allow your foot to turn the corner, even though this is a much shorter boot to pull on. I'll tell you how that feels when I talk about size and comfort. Aesthetically though, it does look pretty sharp, like a western boot. The Baxter gringo boot is made from a tan distressed leather and because the last has the look of a western boot about it, I'd say that it's a strictly casual boot and most appropriate with potentially work style gear. I don't think you could pair this with the more professional office business casual stuff. Because of that cowboy boot look, I think they look really good with longer straight leg jeans that give a full break like this pair of proof rover pants from Huckbury's Flint and Tinder brand. The longer full break takes the eye away from the goring and makes it look like a western boot. Baxter boots, or I think more technically correctly, Baxter Footwear Company was established in 1850 in Goldburn, New South Wales. A few weeks ago I brought to you Ian Harrell the bootmaker and I said it was arguably Australia's oldest bootmaker because the Harrell Company had bootmaking traditions from the 1400s in England and then came to Australia in the 1920s. Baxter is Australia's oldest boot company in the sense that it was the first one actually established in Australia. The company was actually founded by William Tease but was bought over by Henry Baxter in 1885 and since then has been owned and managed by the Baxter family now into its fifth generation. Baxter's history has been mainly in work boots making boots for primary producers, construction, firefighters and ambulance men and women. In fact there's a boot called the Ambo. Ambo is Australian for EMT technicians and ambulances. Like many if not all boot companies all over the world they make boots for soldiers in the first and second world wars and expand it there on and I believe they still make boots for the Australian Defence Forces, the ADF. In the late 1990s Baxter did also move to import their hides. Today the majority of their boots are made in Vietnam although I think some models are still made in Goldburn. Currently they produce and sell about 90,000 pairs a year. They're not really well known locally in Australia mainly selling in the eastern states and it really is good to hear about an old Australian company that still survives and continues their company's traditions. As my subscribers will know I'm a management consultant in real outside of YouTube life and in my professional work I have worked with clients all over the world on their systems and processes. In my professional opinion quality of product is not made in a specific country it's made by adopting processes and procedures that align to your vision and values. I don't really have much truck with people who say oh I only buy made in Australia or I only buy made in the USA because I think that's marginally myopic and if a company is Australian owned or American owned it's still bringing in a contribution to the nation. The fact that we're losing skill is a government issue for not supporting industry not for the manufacturing overseas process. However in my non-professional view I too still take pride in seeing something from here that tries to continue its traditions wherever they make their products. But let's take a look at the construction before I give you my views on the value. As usual I'll start from the bottom and work my way up. The gringo is a 270 degree Goodyear welted boot. If you're new to Goodyear welting you can check out this video up here click and the link will appear below this video. Basically in 270 degree Goodyear welting a thin strip of leather is sewn onto the inside of the uppers around three quarters of the boot. The outside of the welt is then stitched through a midsole and the outsole to fix the front together. The back end which is not welted is glued and nailed onto the insole to secure it. Goodyear welting means that the outsole can be easily replaced when worn and it provides good water resistance because there are no holes that go entirely all the way through from outside to inside. I am concerned about the construction quality on this pair. It's not that I believe they're going to fall apart, you know, far from it. They feel heavy and sturdy and uncomfortable that all the pieces making up the boot have been sturdily put together. It's the finishing I'm more concerned about but that may be reflective of the price which I'll talk about later. In the finishing there's a definite ledge on the back of the boot. The idea of a 270 degree Goodyear welt is that the thick welt doesn't extend around the back of the heel allowing the midsole and outsole to be trimmed very close to the heel. In this way it not only looks like sleeker and dressier but it also doesn't get caught in stirrups and ladders and it won't pick up dirt behind the heel. This un-welded heel is not only sticking out there's actually a concave curve to it which definitely will pick up dirt. Another thing about the quality of finish is the stitching. The stitching on the Goodyear welt starts on the left of each boot quite finely and then gradually opens out so that the stitch density is almost twice as much at the start than at the end. It almost seems like the person stitching these started on the left of each boot slowly and then whipped it around quickly. If you look under the sole of the left boot you see that the stitching went around got too close to the edge of the toe had to stop and start again and then five centimetres later got too far inboard and had to stop and start again. The stitching on the uppers is okay but that Goodyear welt stitching is bloody bonkers. The outsole itself is an eight millimetre thick rubber outsole which is firm and has some curly corrugations moulded into it so it is quite grippy actually. The heel rubber top lift is a block of rubber on top of several layers of leather. Inside the boot the insole is leather and inside the cavity caused by the two or three millimetre thick wealth going around the outside edge Baxter does use a natural cork filling. Inside they fit a leather and foam back comfort non-removable full-slip insole. So all the materials used are good, natural leather and cork. The boot is unlined in the vamp but leather lined in the shaft which is a strange turnaround. Both the heel counter and the toe puff are not particularly stiff they can flex when you press them but that does help with comfort and weight. The goring feels pretty good and elastic and firmly returns the state after being stretched. They are securely sewn in as are the two pull tabs on each boot embroidered with Baxter handcrafted since 1850. The uppers leather in the gringo, there's only one choice is a distressed tan leather. You know the boot world needs to come to some agreement about what they call their products. I have heard other boot makers also call uppers distressed but they seem to be different from tannery to tannery. R&W for example use a leather that they call distressed but it's actually a crazy horse treatment. Blunstone's one of their models is called distressed but it's kip leather. In this case I'm pretty sure this is a new buck. Now new buck is not a bad thing. Unlike popular misconception true new buck is not a split leather like suede. It's a full grain leather meaning it's from the top of the hide which is the strongest but it has been corrected meaning that the smooth top layer has been lightly sanded to reveal a nap that feels almost like, well it feels velvety. The reason they do that is it scratches less easily than smooth leathers and can patina really beautifully. This leather is about two millimeters thick which is about average and it feels really supple. Caring for new buck is pretty easy. Baxter recommends that you apply a waterproofing agent before first wear. There's plenty on the market from Sofia and from its less expensive sister company, Turago, Redwing makes some, R&W and so on. To clean it Baxter recommends treating it like suede. Basically spot clean any marks with a suede eraser and then brush with a suede brush to remove dirt and to re-raise the nap. They are silent on conditioning and anyway I seldom condition my new buck or suede leathers. Although you can try a suede spray on conditioner from Sofia or Turago. Just make sure to reapply the waterproofer after cleaning and conditioning. When it comes to sizing this boot you can try true to size but when I bought them from an Aussie online store called Everything Australian I was told that maybe going up a half size might be better because of the narrower toe box. I listened to their advice and it works. Now just to summarize my true size in the UK convention is 7.5. To convert to the US sizing convention just add one number to whatever I say from here on. Normally in the US, in the service boots at least I size down by a half because US manufacturers seem to size large but UK, Australian and other Commonwealth countries usually size true to size. In this case I took a UK 8 and the sales guy Dwayne at Everything Australian he was right. The narrow toe box made an 8 a better fit. I do find the fit weird though. I think it's because this is lasted like a cowboy boot. If you look straight down at it the toes look like a rounded almond cowboy boot toe. Coming backwards the waist is wide and it doesn't narrow back in. This makes the fit feel like a cowboy boot where the heel and the waist are looser to allow you to pull the boots on and get your foot around the corner. But when you have it on the ball of the foot and the toe box holds your feet. I have been told and I do find that in cowboy boots there should be an appreciable heel slip which is what I get with this boot. Only this is a Chelsea and in a Chelsea is not particularly comfortable because it's a shorter boot and you really don't need that room to pull it on your foot to turn the corner especially with goring panels. When you walk in these there is that cowboy boot heel slip without a tall shaft that makes you feel secure. And then there is the weird walking gate. When I first put these on and went for a walk I got a funny feeling like my foot was striking the ground three times distinctly and not rolling from heel to ball to toe. Looking at the alignment of heels to the ball of the foot you can see why. The heels have been put on so that when you sit back on them they reveal a gap between the line of the heel and the line of the ball of the foot. So clearly as you walk you first hit the ground with your heel then there will be another click as your weight transfers to the front edge of the heel and then the ball of the foot slaps down on the ground. It's weird. On the plus side I had no break-in experience with these at all. Once I got used to the clip-clock effect of the walk it was comfortable. I guess aided by the nice supple leather and the comfort of the leather cork and foam under my feet. Now to value. Before I tell you the price I just want to say that in my view as a consumer and as a management consultant also dealing with marketing value is not about dollars but about how you perceive those dollars. In marketing it said that you're attracted to a product by the look and how you feel using the product. Then you justify your choice by analysing the price and telling yourself that the price is good. Heart first then head. So this is Aussie $240 on the Baxter website and I bought it from Everything Australia for $199 on sale. At $250 they compare with Blannies and the other TPU heat-fix sole boots like Rossi, Redback and Mongrel boots. But most of those sell for under that most of the time. This is good year-welted though and those others will have to be thrown away once the outsoles wear out. The Ian Harrow boots that I had up here a few weeks ago are over $300. And let's not forget RMs are over $600. So price-wise they are in the ballpark, that's what my head tells me. And when they're on sale for $200 just for the construction method alone they blow the TPU heat-fix sole boots out of the water. As for value, in my opinion not so much. I am not in love with the fit. I'm disappointed by that finishing. The heel thing really bothers me when I walk, especially on hard surfaces. Earlier I talked about how quality is defined by installing systems and procedures including checks and minimum standards. By this evidence they'll need their procedures looked at. At $200 I'm just okay. In summary, you know, I really wanted to love these boots. Australia's oldest boot company, family tradition through the generations helped to build Australia and helped to defend Australia. These are things to be proud of. In looks, apart from the top-down view, they have the looks of a blunt stone. In fact, that's why I chose them because I thought they could become my everyday but good year-welted blunnies. The method of construction is sturdy. The materials in the boot are good and the leather feels pretty good. But, but I'm disappointed. Yeah, it may be reflected in the price, but that's stitching under the sole. The incongruous cowboy boot fit that doesn't work in a Chelsea. The clickety-cuff-funk when I walk. Not happy, Jan. So, I hope you liked the review anyway. Tell me what you think in the comments below. Now, I'm not one of those guys who go, Oh, it's not real leather. Oh, it's not worth it. But I don't know. Am I being too harsh? And while you're down there, do me a favor and click on the like button. And of course, if you want to be notified of more boot reviews coming up, good or bad, click on the subscribe below. I have some interesting videos in the pipeline. Until the next time, you take care and I'll see you soon.