 G'day, how are you going? My name is Tech and welcome to Bootlossophy, my channel on boots and boot type stuff. I acknowledge the Wajik people who are the traditional custodians of the lands I live and work on here in Perth in Western Australia. Today, I'm taking a look at this pair of eBaid Truman Boots in Aubergine Horse Rump. If you know your boots, you can see from the profile that this is a pair of boots from Truman Boots based in Oregon in the United States. It's built on their most popular last, the 79 last. And if you don't know what a last is and what the 79 last is, hang on, we'll get there. The upper leather is Italian and it's not cow, it's horse, and more of that later also. But as you can see, it's called Aubergine because of that wine grape color. In fact, it's not a sharp purple like an Aubergine or an eggplant in some countries. It's more of a subdued brown with plump grape colors. In fact, it's not far off Halloween's colorate as you can see from this Halloween colorate Chromic Cell belt that I bought from Grant Stone. I'll leave a link to the site where you can get a belt like this to match your colorate boots. But back to these Aubergine boots. They're a six inch style service or work boot design. It's hard to really categorize between those two particular categories in a boot design like this. I mean, they are rounded and look like American heritage work boots, but at the same time, they have a service boot style to them. The cap toe and the external pocket backstay can really work in both those design categories. The dark and now quite glossy leather, the low profile mid and outsole, the subdued antique brass eyelets and the deep quarters can make this look like a dressy boot despite the obvious sturdy build. I find this quite a versatile sort of boot. You can take hiking, go to the office, relax at a social gathering or at home or even used to do some manual labor outside. I'm not sure I'd wear it every day on a building site, but for sure, doing gardening or some home projects, weekend framing or you know, tiling so on. So ultimately, people will ask me what you can wear it with. It's a little stretch, I think, to talk about what you wear Truman boots with because they're obviously built rugged, despite any leather they use that could begin to look dressy. However, on the assumption that most of my viewers are not looking at my reviews to scout out the best five air week, 52 week a year work boot to wear logging or on a hardcore building site, I'll talk about what my non manual work life and casual life look like in these. Fair hips, the warning now. Look, I think the clue is what activities you would wear these for. I said hiking and casual wear primarily, so dress accordingly. Nothing too business casual, but I have worn them with gray or brown jeans and a button up and blazer to go to my office. At other times, I've also gone to the office in chinos and a chambray shirt and sports coat. And when it's colder weather, I think I can layer on top with a waistcoat or a jumper. I find that earth colors go well with this hint of oxblood or wine. So browns and khaki, greens and blues are all okay. Clearly anything denim goes with this. T-shirt and jumper or maybe a button up shirt or a flannel and a waxed coat. Look, this is really versatile and just about anything casual would work as long as you don't clash colors. Now, before we go on, let's take a look at Truman boots. For those of you who don't know, they were founded in 2014 by Vince Romano in the American state of Pennsylvania. And when the company outgrew these small premises, they found that rural Pennsylvania couldn't quite give them the facilities and skilled labor, so they moved to Colorado. As they kept growing, they then found that the city of Boulder in Colorado couldn't support what they thought they needed for the long-term economic needs of the company and its employees and subsequently moved to Eugene in Oregon. If you're not familiar with the U.S. and you pulled out a map, if they still exist, you'll see that their journey was all across the U.S. continent from east to west. At any rate, as they grew, developed and moved on, they were gradually gaining a reputation for well-made boots. It has been said by many, including a cobbler I use who knows his American heritage boots, that, built-wise, there's not much to improve on in a pair of Truman boots. Maybe there's not as much leather in the shank and sole construction as a pair of whites. Maybe they're not as refined in stitching and finish as a pair of Weibergs, but overall, they're widely recognized as well-made boots. Somewhere in that journey, though, they gained a reputation that you still see touted in some social media forums that they are difficult to deal with as a customer. Now, I don't know Vince Romano. I've never spoken to him, and we've never emailed, but I have seen him in interviews, including a recent real boot talk with Dale from AeroSurferLV, and he comes across as a really nice guy, slightly profane maybe, and very passionate in what he believes in. I think in the early days there was some evidence of him being short to customer criticism on social media, but hey, you're starting out a boot brand. You know your boots and you're passionate about your product. It can happen. That's probably what stuck in people's minds, even though I see no evidence of it these days, and my interaction with their customer service has always been good. It's what they teach in marketing, you know, good service spreads the word slowly but surely. However, one moment of bad service gets multiplied a dozen times by the squeaky wheels with a gripe. Today, Truman produced basically the same boot in a couple of different lasts or boot shapes, a couple of different outsoles, and a multitude of really, really interesting leathers. That is the true Truman badge, I think, right there, that you can indulge your love of boots in a form that you know works for you, but in many interesting rugged and smooth leathers. You can take a look at my review of their boots in Smoke Rambler up here, which shows the variety of colors and leathers that Truman uses. I'll put a link to their website, and if you haven't been there before, go down there and go take a look. Okay, now on to construction. Starting from the bottom up, these put feet to ground on a day night outsole. Day night is a UK brand that invented these inset low profile studs in the 1890s, so while looking gruevily modern, not modern at all. I'm told they tweak their composite rubber as requested by bootmakers, and these are a little softer in feel to some of my other day night rubber in other makes. They still feel pretty durable, of course, but I think they are a little softer underfoot, which makes for better shock absorption and comfort. The heels are built on leather stacks and topped by a day night top lift. The next layer up is a veg tan 5mm thick midsole. The outsole is glued onto the midsole, and then the midsole and outsole are stitched to the uppers using a 270 degree Goodyear flat welt construction. Let's unpack that a little. It is a Goodyear welt constructed boot. You can check out my Goodyear welt 101 video to learn about Goodyear welting. What it is, is a strip of leather called the welt, which is put around the outside of the boot, sewn inside the boot to the insole, and sewn outside the boot to the mid and outsole. That's the stitching you see here at the top and underneath. This makes the boot more water-resistant because the welt is a barrier to moisture, and it makes the boot capable of being resold multiple times because you can cut the stitching to remove the worn outsole and replace it. In this case the welt itself is veg tan and it's about 3 or 4mm thick. Where some boots have the welt go all the way around the whole boot, in this case it only goes about three quarters of the way around the front of the boot. Hence it's referred to as a 270 degree welt. The heel portion is glued and nailed to the inside of the boot rather than being welted. Yes, technically this means the heel portion is not perhaps as water-resistant as the front, but unless you wade into a stream to go fly fishing in these, think about standing in a puddle. It's the front of your boot and the heel stack is above the puddle hopefully, at least in most circumstances. Oh yes, this is called a flat welt by the way, that's just clarification. Nowadays many makers use storm or split welts where you see part of the welt flange up and get pushed against the side of the uppers to form a further water barrier. So much so that I've had people comment on a boot with a flat or normal welt that they're not really good at your welting. They expect all good your welts to be storm welted. No, not the case. People use to call this just a welt, but with the popularity of storm welts, more and more people refer to these as flat welts just to clarify the difference. Okay, let's keep moving on up, but staying inside the boot. You remember I said the welt going around the front of the boot is about three or four millimeters thick? Well, if you really think about it, that means it creates a bit of a three or four millimeter cavity in the middle of the boot, in the middle of the insole of the boot. In this case, this is filled with cork. Now, in some of my other videos about Truman, people have commented that they use foam, but in this case I checked and it is cork. The interesting thing is that from what I can gather, Truman have moved from cork to foam and back again at various times. Embedded in the cork, just below the insole is a steel shank. A shank is a flat piece of hard material, usually steel, that's inserted in the footbed between the heel and the ball of the foot. Looking at the side of the boot, you can imagine that if there wasn't something stiffening the boot at this gap, over time your feet would sink into that gap, causing foot soreness and instability. That's what the shank is for. Inside the boot is a leather insole and it's topped by a full length leather comfort sock liner with the Truman logo of the owner's dog imprinted at the heel. Still inside the boot, the vamp is leather lined but the shaft is unlined. However, being horse butt, there isn't the usual rough leather nap inside. It's actually quite smooth. The toe cap is not a real toe cap. By that I mean it's a piece of leather that's sewn on to an incomplete vamp piece rather than the piece of leather sewn on top of a full vamp, making a double layer over the toe. It's an unstructured toe box and has begun to flatten and deform, which I quite like. The heel counter, the stiffener, is leather and it's external between the uppers and this heel pocket sewn on the outside as part of a two-piece backstay. The leather itself is shaped around Truman's signature 79 last. A last is the foot or boot shaped mould that bootmakers pull the uppers leather around to form the shape of the boot that the last will make it look like. That's why these boots look different from a sleek pair of dress boots or a chunky toad pair of iron ranges or timberland boots. That's the shape the last was carved or moulded to make it look like. This last is not particularly snug in the heel. It is quite wide at the ball of the foot and then sharpens into an almond toe in the toe box. In structured toe boxes of my other Truman boots, that toe box does look less sleek than on this one. It's an interesting shape. It looks roomy and round yet visually also looks a bit short and may be emphasised by the slightly shorter than usual toe cap or at least in my opinion. It's not that I dislike it by the way. Someone said in the comments of another of my Truman reviews that they could tell I was biased about them. Not true. I do really like my what five pairs now of Truman boots. It's just that the toe cap shape is definitely different from say iron ranges or the sleeker parkhurst and Thursday toe caps that I have more in my collection of than Truman. If I don't talk about how it's different, what kind of review would this be right? Now we come to the leather. Let's talk buttocks. Yup, this is rump as in butt. It's from Italian Guidi tannery founded in 1896. The tannery describes their horse rump as having a fine smooth texture and they finish it with oil. They say that the tanning makes it start up matte but with use will develop a glossiness and some of the reverse elements of shell attached. Horse butt or horse rump leather is not shell cordovan. The shell is a membrane layer just under the skin in the butt of a horse. Cows don't have it. So horse butt is the skin covering just above the shell layer and when it's separated and tanned can sometimes reveal bits of shell on the underside and is smoother than the underside rather than show that usual fibrous rough nap. In fact there's not much to see inside the right boot but inside the left boot you can see some of the striations on the inside of this quarter that's got bits of leftover shell. As a leather, horse button, horse leather generally has a more closely packed fiber structure than cow or steer and so feels stiffer at first and is more durable and flexible and abrasion resistant. Think of a thick closely woven material versus a coarsely woven material. Subsequently because we eat a hell of a lot more cattle than horses it's in limited supply and more expensive. It feels amazing on the surface full grain and uncorrected but smooth. Think silk versus canvas. It also feels thick but soft. It's actually only a couple of millimeters thick but it feels a lot sturdier and yet it also feels malleable and moldable. The patina is developing nicely and as it wears more of the brown comes through in some areas like this vamp area while the quarters and heels are retaining a lot of the ox blood dark wine color. The toe cap and the quarters are triple stitched. The rest are combination of double and single stitching. There are reinforcing panels at the collar and behind the eyelets. The tongue in fact is part of that reinforcement behind the eyelets being semi-gusseted up to the second last eyelet making this one of the most comfortable tongues on boots that I have. My other Truman boots have two speed hooks at the top but these are all eyelets all seven of them. It can sometimes hold up when you lace them up by a minute or so. A few seconds I don't mind all eyelets. Some people complain because it takes time to lace them up. I complain when my computer takes all of 10 seconds to boot up a program instead of the usual six or seven seconds. We all need to breathe and meditate for a bit. Keep calm and one way I find of keeping calm is to brush my boots. I don't know the act of cleaning brushing and conditioning my boots is very calming and therapeutic to me especially when I use my bare hands to apply the conditioner and smooth and massage it in. In fact I think we all find it a little too therapeutic because I get a lot of queries about conditioning boots. You guys like doing it too. Now Greedy says to use a greasy conditioner from Saphir but I think Venetian shoe cream would be fine and if you did want a greasy conditioner I think Tarago a sister company to Saphir makes a cheaper version. Caring for this horse butt is pretty easy. It's an oily tough leather. I would brush it often. That would help to move the oils around inside to keep it lubricated and be basically self-curing. Brushing is also important because it cleans the sand and gritty stuff off. Don't forget the welt line. Brush that off. Sand and grit is often the worst and most abrasive thing for leather and then once in a while maybe a couple of times a year if you wear these regularly more if you wear them hard in rain and dirt less if you wear them just casually condition them with a creamy conditioner. Let the conditioner have time to be absorbed and dry and haze and then brush it off vigorously and if you have to if it still feels a little sticky buff it off with a soft cloth. As to sizing I fit into a size 8d in all my Truman boots when my true size as measured on a brand new device is an 8.5d. Like many brands I size a half down. The interesting thing is with this pair of unstructured toe boots as well as another pair of unstructured toe Truman boots in java wax flesh that I have the compressing of the toes makes me feel like maybe I could go true to size. I don't have that sensation in my other Truman boots that have structured toes in the 79 last maybe because I don't feel the toe box on top of my toes. I mean they're not over tight or anything they're not small I just have the sensation that there's some pressure on the top of my toes otherwise the fit is fine it's snug in the waist it is a little room in the heel as all Truman boots are to me a good fit at the ball of the foot a half size I think is only about a half centimeter or about an eighth of an inch so it's hardly anything to sneeze in it maybe next time if I buy an unstructured toe box Truman boot at least in this 79 last I might get true to size if anyone has experience of that let me know in the comments below in terms of comfort these are good the arch support is not as good as my whites mps or my olden indies or my pair of nyx robert boot those have either a a heck of a lot of shaped leather built up under the arch in the case of the whites and the nicks you know from the Pacific Northwest or they have some sort of engineering magic in the case of the indies however these aren't worse than many other brands that I have there's a very similar feel under the arch as my parkhurst boots and as my grandstone and even redwing boots comparing comfort with the modern builds like Thursday and helm yeah sure those are immediately comfy like putting on sneakers but I get the feel that with these you settle into comfort and then it's good for life there is like some of my other Truman boots a little pressure just under the arch on the inside of my feet like um like this quarter panel hasn't been skived properly it's thin down where it meets the vamp and so um kind of pushes in that might be my archester now to value um I bought these very lightly used from ebay very lightly used in fact I saw this very pair being reviewed on the good you well subreddit I know because the reviewer bought these seconds from Truman and they were seconds because of this on the left boot on the inside quarter is a cut it looked a lot worse when I got it you could almost pull apart the cut but I took it to my cobbler who uh very slowly filled the cut with glue and now you can hardly notice it unless you really look for it I bought these for us 220 dollars on ebay and from his review I gather he bought them as seconds for us 350 in the 2021 black Friday sale as seconds I think they would have listed on the Truman website uh if there weren't seconds at the time in the high 500s being horserump or horse butt these are my first horserump leather boots so I'll talk value as if they weren't seconds uh with that cut I do know horserump is rarer and more expensive let's put a pin in that nowadays you would buy marium horse butt boots for example in the high 500s to mid 600s uh at least 100 dollars more than regular bovine leather 100 us dollars the stitching qc is pretty good and the leather is durable despite that cut for being seconds and they are comfy and you know hell it looks really good so as non seconds I would not balk at well made horse butt boots in the 500s us my wallet might but that's a food on the table thing not a value thing so that's my take on these Truman boots in their classic 79 last in Italian aubergine horserump leather I'm glad you took the time to check out my butt if you liked it please click on like and subscribe I really like the aesthetic of my butt I like the design shape and this colorate but not colorate leather and it's certainly starting to patina really really interestingly the build is definitely and obviously sturdy the quality apart from the cut which was recognized is good the materials used are good on the negative side I keep feeling that quarter panel against the inside of my feet and this is not the maker's problem I feel a little pressure on my toes as the unstructured toe gently collapses somewhere in between good and bad arch support comfort is not as good as other pacific northwest brand boots but at least as good as other mid-range brands what do you think love to hear from you below and look before we go click on like that really helps me grow my channel and of course if you haven't already click on subscribe until the next time take care and I'll see you soon