 G'day. Welcome to Bootlossophy. My name is Tech and I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands that I live and work on, the Wajik people of the Nong'a Nation. Now this video is one that's been requested by several people who have commented when I review Mokto Boots. They asked me which ones are your favorites? How do they compare? So let's take a look at that. So this video has been requested by quite a lot of people. Every time I review my Mokto Boots and if you go to my channel, there's too many Boots for me to put a link up at the top as I usually do. But if you go to my channel and you scroll through it or search for these Boots, you'll find that I've actually reviewed them, except for these two. And whenever I review Mokto Boots, people ask me which one's your favorite? That's a really difficult question because it's like which one's your favorite child and even if you have one, you never say it, right? They also ask how do you compare them? You know, what's the fit like and so on? So I thought I might go through them but the concept is that I'm going to talk about my high-sided Mokto Boots. There is this particular style I think is typified by the Tharagud and certainly the Red Wing 875, where it's a Mokto and it's high-sided to give you some room for working. So although technically Alden Indies are Moktoes, I'm not going to include them in here because they don't quite conform to that that look of that high-side sharp Mokto look. And Parkhurst has also brought out the Niagara, which is in a similar design to the Alden. So it's quite sleek with a Mokto, but it's it's not a high-sided Mokto boot. So what is a Mokto boot anyway? OK. Mokto is short for Mokkasin Toe. They really include boots that are designed in such a way that look like original First Nations Americans Mokkasin shoes where the leather piece that goes around the side actually wraps around the bottom and forms part of the sole and then a vamp piece is sewn on as evidenced by the stitching and then it's stitched. So a Mokto boot mimics that design. It's not Mokkasin MOCK, it's Mokkasin MOCK short for Mokkasin. So they're all typified by having this this stitching across the top of the vamp between the apron piece and the actual side of the boot. Commonly they are wage-sold. I have no idea why, but that's obviously the initial design from Farragut that became Americans America's Boy Scout boot in the 1930s, I think it was 40s and typified by the Redwing 875 and other Redwing Mokto wage-sold models. The kind of card outside the pack is the Grant Stone Brass Boot where you can get a wage-sold, but the one I've got in particular has a commando sole. And by the way, lots of people do convert the Redwing 875s and other Redwing wage-sold Moktoes into commando soles. Let's take a look at the differences in the design, the materials, the price and in comfort. And I'll take each of those categories in turn. So if you take a look at the ones in my collection, I'll start off from my right. I have these Redwing 875s in Oral Legacy Leather. Then I've got the Grant Stone Brass Boot in what's called Earth, which is a waxy commando wax suede. I've just rewax it recently. This one is an interesting one and I'll talk about that. This is Thursday's Diplomat in the rugged and resilient Matt Black. This is, if you know your boots, you recognize this, the Farragut Classic 6-inch Mokto work boot. And then this is new to my collection. This is also from Grant Stone, the Field Boot, which is I think a kind of like East Coast America hunting boot, but it has that Mokto design and it's got high size. So I'm including in this video. So sue me. Let's take a look at the comparative design. I think if you look at these, the most similar is the Redwing 875 and the Farragut 6-inch Classic Mokto. You can see, and I'm just going to put one down, you can see that the way they're both designed, you know, I'll put this in here, you can see the way that they're both designed is that they're 6-inch, they have a wage sole, they have a high-sided side of the toe box area, they have the apron that comes on flat and they're stitching. Now, I think the Farragut is not a real Mokto. In other words, that's one piece of leather, but they've crimped it and stitched it. Whereas the Redwing 875 is, I believe, two pieces of leather being this piece here and the piece that goes around. So that's a real Mokto. Now, there are others who kind of mimic that look, so let's take a look at the Thursday diplomat. You can see the genesis of it, can't you? It's quite similar, except what's happened, of course, is it's been sleeked down to be a little bit more dressy and definitely, same size, the diplomat has a little less room in the toe box. You can easily wriggle your toes in both these two Moktoes. This feels more like a standard boot, extremely comfortable And then, of course, you have the variants. The Grant Stone has the Vap piece, this little apron piece, a little bit more inboard with the stitching around the toe there. So you can see how what I mean by, you know, it goes in a little bit more inboard. And as a result, it creates this rounded toe effect as opposed to this almost right angle toe effect there. So there's a design difference other than, in fact, the outsole. As for the feel boot, as I said, I think this is designed like the state of main type of hunting boots because it's got this extra protective bump piece of leather across the toe. But similar in design, there's the apron piece, there's the sides, high-sided. Talking about comparative materials and construction, let's see, they are all good year-welted and if you're not sure what good year-welted is, that's this piece of leather that you see on the outside. In all of them, they're 360 degrees, which means they go all the way around the outside of the boot. The uppers are stitched to the inside through the insole and the outsole is stitched on this outside stitch here through the outsole. You don't see the stitching in wedge sole boots, just have to check because some do because the wedge sole is glued on to a midsole that's had the good year-welt stitch gone through. The Thursday diplomat is a little misleading. It looks at first almost like a stitch down and I'm not clear whether this is a stitch down or not, where instead of the uppers tucked in and sewn to the inside of the welt and then the welt sewn through the midsole, this looks like the uppers have been splayed out and that splayed out bit stitched into a welt and that's a stitch down construction. I'd be surprised though because stitch down is tricky and more expensive and for 199 that'd be a hell of a feat if they did that. In terms of uppers, we have a range starting with this one from Charles F. Stead. It's their waxy commander which is a suede and ultimately I think it's probably not as durable as oiled leathers or chrome tanned and oiled and veg tanned leathers because it is a suede. It is a split leather. It is covered with a layer of wax to give it some protection and in fact as I said earlier I've just rewaxed this using an auto wax bar and a heat gun to sort of let it soak in. Leading on to a chrome tanned leather from Thursday from La Farbe tannery I believe in Mexico. This is their rugged and resilient so it's meant to be I think a kind of corrected grain leather or possibly a new buck that's been oiled over to give it some protection and then you've got the the famous legacy leather from Redwing. It's oiled in fact it feels oily now even even so. I have conditioned this maybe about a month ago but it feels reasonably oily and therefore quite protective. It's a supple leather although it's firm. Going across to the Tharagud this is tumbled oiled leather. They tumble it to really soften it and the difference between these two is actually remarkable. It's soft enough to feel like you might not get the protection but I think you do. These are clearly work boots and come from the genesis of work boots and then you have Italian veg tanned leather from Badalasi Carlo in Italy and this is their Minerva in a colour called saddle tan. So in terms of uppers a wide variation. In terms of outsoles you have a grand stone rubber outsole, wedge sole, proprietary two grand stone that's slightly softer than the Vibram Christie sole that you get on the Redwing model. This is quite firm. About the same density as this Vibram one on the Thursday and also about the same density as the Tharagud proprietary wedge sole. In the brass boot grand stone uses their proprietary commander sole which is a firm durable outsole. In terms of stitching they're all double and triple stitched where it counts. This one's gone crazy with stitches across there as is the Tharagud with that I think that's actually a fake stitch. I don't think it does anything. I think it's a cosmetic stitch. So in terms of stitching they're always be tightly done. You expect for 199 dollars this may have cut corners but honestly you can't see it. So well done Thursday boots. Now let's move on to the comparative price. Now I need to check my notes. So the Redwing 875 in Australian outlets they sell for $575 in stores. There are actually a couple of stores in Australia one in Perth one in Melbourne and I think one in Sydney that sell Redwing boots and they sell for $575. In American websites they sell for around just over $310 something like that. The Tharagud they sell for US $250. I can't find a store in Australia that sells them but at US $250 that converts to Australian $385 plus postage and at the moment post COVID postage could be anywhere up to about 70 US dollars. So that instead of being a low-range boot this starts to make it quite an expensive boot in Australia. I've seen there is actually a Tharagud Australia website and I've seen them selling for around $320 and sometimes on sale around $200. So if you go to Tharagud Australia just go and Google them and I might put a link in the description below. You might find a few bargains. Then what have I got? The Grant Stone Brass Boot US $380 converts to Australian $585 then you add postage and similarly with the field boot again US $380 converts to Australian $585.90 and this is the outlier that Thursday diplomat at US $199 and converts to about $300 plus postage. So they all fit within that $200 to $350 to $400 range and depending on make and I suppose comparative quality the values of each are really not that different in terms of the value formula. Let's now take a look at comparative comfort. The most comfortable out of these I think is the Thursday diplomat and that's probably not a surprise to you if you know that Thursday uses EVA foam and poron inside the boot which means that when you take it out of the box and you slip your feet in it's like slipping into a pair of sneakers because EVA and poron are used in sneakers. The last is reasonably sleek which means if you're wide-footed you could have a few problems in terms of the ball of the feet. I don't have that problem this fits me quite well but it is snug. Then I think probably the next most comfortable is the thorough good. A large part of that is because of the the insole that they provide you with which is a nice foam insole and it sort of protects you a lot in foot strike and shock absorption. The tumbled oil leather is also extremely soft so it's really very comfortable. The height of the toe box allows you to wiggle your toes so that gives you some comfort. Then the next line in terms of comfort I think the two Grant Stone boots are very similar. I'll just pick up one. The last use in the two are exactly the same it's their Floyd last which is built to provide quite a wide and high toe box to give you comfort in that area when you're walking or hiking or working in these boots. The heel is snug so it keeps your heel in place and then it gradually widens out to the sides. The inside of the boot is leather so it's a leather insole and leather sock liner and then you have the leather midsole you have cork filling and depending on whether you have the wedge sole or the commando sole you also have that to help you with foot strike. The shank in both are steel triple ribbed steel so they give you really good arch support and then I think the least comfortable at least until you've completely broken them in and I'm not even sure I've completely broken these in is the redwing. The redwing mock toe is famously difficult to break in. I didn't find as many problems as others have reported but these are not easy to break in and they're very firm under foot. I've actually had to put a little foam insole just to help the ball of my feet not hurt so much when I'm walking so that's the comfort. So in summary that's how I would compare my high toe box mock toe boots. Do I have a favorite? I think my favorite in looks and aesthetics has got to be the redwing 875 I mean that is a classic. Do I have a favorite? I think the favorite in terms of arch support comfort it would have to be the Thursday diplomat. They've built up that arch somehow with a little bit of I don't know what maybe a bit of leather that gives you a little bit more arch support. Do I have a favorite? I think in terms of going out walking I love these grandstone brass boots particularly with the commando sole they're great for gripping and I think you can just check out my video where I've gone on hikes and these. So do I have a favorite? Not going to tell you. So I hope you like this little comparison. Go to my channel and check out the the reviews I've done on these boots. If you like this video don't forget to click on like and don't forget to click on subscribe. I've got plenty more videos to bring to you. I hope you enjoyed this. Take care and I'll see you soon. Okay