 G'day. How are you going? Welcome to my channel Boot Lossophy and if you're new here, my name is Tech. I'm working on Wajik Country in Western Australia and I acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land. In this review, I'm looking at the Wolverine 1000 mile plain-toe original boot in Cordova number 8. This is the Wolverine 1000 mile boot or to give it its full name, the Wolverine 1000 mile plain-toe original boot because there are several versions of this boot and in fact the 1000 mile name is now used over a whole range of boots. Wolverine itself was founded in 1883 by G.A. Krauss in Rockford, Michigan in the U.S., starting first as a tannery and then began producing work boots and gloves. By 1903, the business was producing hundreds of boots a day and it grew so much that the business was the cause of bringing electricity to Rockford. It's now a publicly traded company producing boots and shoes in the Wolverine brand name but also in the names of Hush Puppies and Merrill and in 2012 they also took over Socorny, Keds, Stridewright and Sperry as their brands. Apart from all of those brands, they also manufacture footwear for Caterpillar and Harley Davidson. Still basing their corporate offices in Rockford, Wolverine is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and in 2021 reported annual sales of over 2.4 billion U.S. dollars. So not a small company yet still making heritage boots and apparently making money from it. Turning to this boot, the 1000 mile boot was first introduced in 1914 as a work boot originally made with horse hide for toughness. I've remarked in my other reviews before leaving aside the obvious. Big toe work boots like the Iron Ranger work boots from the turn of the 20th century like these and Aldens seem to have been made like toughened up dress boots allowing you to polish them up after work and take your misses out for a drink and a dance. The aesthetic of the 1000 mile can be mistaken for a dress boot. Sure, the toe is a little raised, a toe bump, but nothing like the red-winged clown shoe shape of the Iron Rangers or the blacksmiths. It's not very sleek but it is shapely enough to pass as an elegantly shaped boot. Its design is simple so you don't look out of place wearing these as a work boot and because it is so simple looking, just three pieces of leather and a backstay, it can pass as a dressy boot for smart casual occasions. In those dressier times before the First World War when men wore suits with an apron over them to do manual work, work boots had leather soles and these have continued that design element although this specific boot has had a rubber toppy sole put on which I'll talk about later. And just before you get carried away, this leather is called Cordoven number eight but it is not Shell Cordoven. The Cordoven name refers really to the color and not the type of the leather. In fact it is Horween's Chromic Cell Leather which I'll explain when I get into the construction. While these boots great great grandparents may have started at life as a work boot, in today's world I think you'd be pretty crazy to spend nearly 300 US dollars in a pair of sleek looking boots like these and go out and do some concreting. Today as work booty tough as these might be, they are definitely in the casual boot area of use. Most people who buy them would crave for that heritage look and genuine history and in fact when I got into boot collecting I identified the need to go and get and wear a list of what I consider to be real heritage boots with real history or at least solid boots made by companies with real heritage. The Iron Ranges for example, the Alden Indy, a Trickers or a Granson Country boot, something from Ellen Edmonds and these the Thousand Mar boots. These in color eight Chromic Cell are not particularly shiny not like my Chromic Cell Brown boots from Ellen Edmonds or from Alden but they are still dressy casual. I think these go particularly well with a conservative gray suit, no flashy cuts but in a charcoal color that sets off this reddish maroon brown boots. Most of the time I think the wear of these boots are for more dressy occasions, going to church or to a wedding, attending a business function or cocktails, everyday wear at places that you wouldn't necessarily wear ripped jeans or heavily faded jeans or canvas work pants. They go well with earth colored chinos like browns and khakis, they're sleek enough to go with slimmer dark jeans or earth toned five pocket pants. The design and color means they can also match wall pants in brown or a very dark navy, maybe even black. I think they're potentially too sleek to wear with faded jeans and t-shirts. I think they are limitately versatile and that they're at the dressier end of the casual spectrum. Let's dive into the construction and as usual let's start from the bottom and we'll work our way up. The soles are leather, to some that's controversial but I really love leather sole shoes. I've worn them all my life and yes they are slippery but you know when you're wearing leather sole shoes so you walk with a little more care and you do not decide to go and climb our Everest in them. What I like about them is that they feel good underfoot and they are flexible. True they can start to look pretty ugly once they get scratched, scuffed and scored and once dirt discolors the sole but these are actually pretty good for that. These are butyl leather soles. Butyl is a synthetic rubber formed from a chemical called isobutylene and another chemical called isoprene. It's infused into the leather in resin form mixed with small amounts of oil and what you end up with is a leather surface with a sticky grippy feel even after wear and it's been scratched up. Unfortunately the previous owner of this pair which I bought off eBay has had a toppy rubber's outsole glued on for some extra grip. It might be my imagination but to me this does reduce flexibility a bit and in my opinion because the rubber adds another layer on the natural flexible leather makes it a little bit stiffer. The heel is original a leather stacked block heel with a rubber top lift for shock absorption. There are actually three layers to the sole there is the leather outsole then inside in the cavity formed by the welt is a cork midsole and then on top of that is a leather insole. Finally on top of that is a half length leather heel pad which covers the heel and down to the arch area. Now let's backtrack a bit. I said that the cork filler midsole fills the cavity formed by the welt so this is a Goodyear welt shoe. It's a former shoe construction that connects the outsole to the uppers via a welt a strip of leather running around the outside edge of the boot. The welt is sewn onto the uppers on the inside and it's also sewn onto the sole on the outside edge of the welt. In this way there are no stitches that go through directly from the inside of the boot to the outsole so it offers a little more water resistance. It's also more easily re-soluble because you can remove the outsole without disturbing the stitches on the welt to the uppers and potentially then damaging the uppers. This is a 270 degree Goodyear welt meaning that the welt only runs across the front of the boot from one side of the heel to the other as opposed to a 360 degree Goodyear welt that runs a full circle around the boot. The reason for this choice is usually to allow a more sleek line at the heel without a welt there. The line of the back of the boot down to the heel remains slim and sleek. If there was a welt at the back in a 360 degree run there would be a ledge formed by the welt there like there is at the front so to some eyes less dressy. The leather and cork sole construction is a gold standard in Goodyear welt shoes. They form two natural layers that will compress over time to form a negative impression of your feet as if they were especially made for you in terms of comfort. Apart from the controversy of a leather sole the 1,000 mile has another controversy. It has no shank or maybe it does. In forums Wolverine representatives have said that it does not have a shank. If you ask them about it they say it does not have a shank but several YouTube channels I've seen like Trenton and Heath have shown themselves re-soling a pair of thousand mile boots and they seem to show a shank being pulled out and replaced. Who knows some discussion groups say that the newer thousand mile boots don't have a shank even though the older models were built with one. Why is this a controversy apart from the confusion? Well a shank is a piece of hard material usually steel that bridges the gap between the heel and the foot pad. People say that it's important because it supports your arch in that gap. Without a strengthening shank your weight will press down and flatten that gap as you stand and walk so that over the course of the day your arch is flattened and flexed and it's going to end up tired and sore. Also a shank offers torsional stability so that your foot doesn't swivel around longitudinally as you step over uneven ground again causing tiredness. Well to be honest unless that leather sole is super strong for its mid-thickness it feels like there is a shank and yet and yet arch support isn't fantastic and after day standing in these I kind of feel sore in the arches. I mean I don't know if you have a definitive answer to this please let me know in the comments below. Anyway let's keep moving up. The leather is chrome excel which I'll talk about next but it's worthy to note that the design only has three main pieces of leather the vamp and the toe box and two quarters. There is a one piece backstay and the tongue of course but they're nicely integrated so they don't stand out. The stitching is actually pretty good these are used boots but even so there are no frayed stitches and the stitch per inch density all look very clean double and triple stitch where it counts it's well put together. There is one contrast stitch at the quarter on both sides and like with most contrast stitches this one has been muted by the application of some colored cream polish. The toe box and heel cap are reinforced or structured by I think leather pieces real leather toe box under the upper and real leather heel counter on the inside covered by a suede heel counter cover inside. These leather pieces if they are leather keep this toe bump shape of the boot and prevents it from collapsing with use and in the heel it forms the shape of a heel cup and maintains that shape so that your heel is fitted securely into it. The inside is lined in the toe box and vamp but the shaft is unlined that's fairly usual in old-time heritage boots. The tongue is partially gusset up to between the fourth quarter and the first speed hook. There are four brass eyelets three brass speed hooks they feel sturdy like most old-time boots like these they're not backed and they just kind of star pressed into the back to hold them. They're solid though no movement there. Despite the tongue being semi-gusted the right tongue slides around pretty annoying I know you can get a cobbler to stitch a small stitch to one side to hold it in place but I'd rather not do that. I've also been told that you can train the tongue by in order to stay by folding it in half lengthwise and I've tried believe me but like some dogs and most cats it's not listening to me. At the top of the shaft Wolverine Thousand Mile is stamped on the outside kind of cool I think but some don't like it. The top of the shaft is unfinished and not rolled. Now let's talk about Chromax Cell. Chromax Cell is produced by the esteemed Horween leather company Tanry out of Chicago. Horween is a 120 year old family owned company. Chromax Cell is one of their famous leathers and is a combination tanned top grain leather that starts with chrome tanning followed by a vegetable tanning process and then followed by a process that hot stuffs the leather with blends of oils and waxes in a big steam tumbler. The whole process takes about a month and produces a soft hardy waxy and self-curing leather. Due to the heavily infused oils and waxes that move around in the leather Chromax Cell has a pull-up effect when you push up against it. This makes Chromax Cell naturally more water resistant and all the oils and waxes make them self-polishing. Most scuffs and marks can be polished out with just your fingers moving the oils around. This one is Horween's colour number 8 Chromax Cell. They use the colour that they use to dye their also famous shell cordovan which is probably why Wolverine calls this their cordovan number 8. It is a sumptuous colour, a little less smooth and shiny than Chromax Cell I've seen in other boots which I think is the way that Wolverine treats the hide and which makes it look more worthy of work boots probably. It's not incredibly thick, it varies between two and two and a half mils thick, but it does feel very tough. It has some burgundy undertones and in some lights it looks plummy purple. In other lights, reddish brown. I have to say though, shine or no shine this colour is more toward the dressy side than reminiscent of a work boot. On the downside, I know these are second hand but I'm not hugely impressed by Wolverine's clicking or leather selection process when it comes to choosing the pieces to cut from the hide. As you can see here the creasing on the vamp of the left boot is weird and way more than the creasing on the right boot. This usually means that a slightly inferior piece was selected on this boot and Chromax Cell has one fault. It can have loose grain and the boot maker has to watch for it. Loose grain is where a patch at the top of the leather delaminates from the lower leathers of the leather. The fibres basically rub against each other and then loosen. Not catastrophic, it's not going to break apart and the rest of the pair is pretty good but I expect more for a US $400 boot. So how do you look after Chromax Cell? I've said it before and I'll say it again. Chromax Cell is pretty easy to take care of. Brush regularly, not just to move the oils and waxes around but also to make sure that you regularly brush off the gritty dust and sand particles that over time could cause deep scratches and weaken the leather. When you need to clean it, unless it's caked in dirt and grease, brush and knock off the dirt and then just use a damp cloth to wipe over it. Then brush it again before you condition. If it really really needs it, saddle soap is fine to clean Chromax Cell but don't forget to make sure that all the grit is off before you mix in the saddle soap. Don't create an emery paste to rough up the surface of the leather. As for conditioning, my go-to product for smooth leather, never mind Chromax Cell, smooth leather is neutral Venetian shoe cream. It will nourish the leather without darkening the already dark leather anyway and it will give a bit of a sheen. This version of Chromax Cell doesn't seem to take too much of a shine and if the colour has worn off a bit and you don't like the patina developing or if you want more of a shine, use a burgundy coloured shoe cream polish, not a wax polish. The cream will further feed the leather and give it colour and it will create a better shine than just the Venetian shoe cream. Now let's take a look at how these boots fit. I'm a US 8.5D in my Brannock sizing. Most American heritage style boots run large. These are no exception and I took my usual 8D in these and they fit really well. The last, that's the mould that the boot is built around, is a pretty slim last so it's snug in the heel, snug in the waist and at the ball of the foot. That area always scares me. I usually like room at the ball of the foot because it's there where you can feel the most restriction and hence the most foot pain there and because of it at the small pinky toes. These don't feel over tight. They are snug but not uncomfortable and I think the shape of the toe box and the roomy bump toe height gives me room in my toes despite the slim shape all the way up to the toes. As for comfort, they're not uncomfortable but I feel that I know I'm wearing work boots. There's no foam footbed of course but I've had other leather cork combinations that feel much better than these. The arch support is not great. Maybe because of the possible lack of shank but I definitely do feel a gap under my arch. I can't tell you what they're like out of the box of course. These are secondhand but as you can see they're not used in abuse so from the evidence of this I don't think the break-in is awful. Maybe the leather has been softened for me by the original owner. Maybe the sole's been flexed for me but I can see that there wouldn't have been tight squeezes or hotspots from the fit. Not uncomfortable but I've had better and I've certainly had worse. I got these for Aussie $199 on eBay. I do get some good finds on eBay. I exercise my own due diligence list and usually come up with some great buys. Hardly used or just tried on boots and some never used pairs even. These have been lightly used. He said that he'd used them several times but they were just too tight so they stayed in the back of the cupboard. The wear on the heel is minuscule and assuming he put on the the toppy outsole cover as soon as he got them the cross-hatching on that rubber is untouched. The inside is pristine. No foot marks from his feet on the leather insoles so all in all for a pair of boots that are listed at $385 new you'd have to say $199 Aussie for a hardly used pair is pretty good. If new for US$385 they compare with Redwing Iron Rangers or Blacksmiths at around $300 US or with Alan Edmonds Higgins mill boots at $475 US. I think that's fair. To me these sit well in between the rougher Redwing models and the more refined Higgins mill. You get a heritage quality boot in a really good chrome XL leather, beautiful treated leather sole. Pretty good to see except for that if he creasing on one boot and it's a durable strong boot. Yeah verdict is worth the money. So guys there you are that's my review of the Wolverine 1000 mile plain toe original boots. A classic really but still mid-range boot in terms of price and quality. 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