JASON
Here is a photo of a pair of Crockett & Jones shoes I bought on Ebay.
I paid 146.50 plus shipping for these puppies. The seller advertised these as Crockett & Jones champagne (light brown) and white spectator wing-tips made for Brooks Brothers. A Crockett & Jones, Peal Co. made for Brooks Brothers shoe like this retails for about $500. The seller wrote that the shoes were in almost new condition, but they had a small spot on the back of the right shoe. Can you see the spot? Spectators are also called co-respondents because the men who wore them in the 1920s were likely to be named as co-respondents in adultery cases. Such is their legacy. Casanovas. Lounge lizard shoes. Shiny suited scoundrels. The bidding started at $100 dollars. I was the only bidder until the last day. Then someone, possibly the seller even, raised the bid to $145. I thought about how much I wanted these shoes and raised my bid to $146.50. I admit to a small feeling of accomplishment when I won the right to pay for this product. I reserved a spot on my shoe shelf. There's the spot. Right between the red tinted Fairfax Oxfords and the Black wing-tip dress boots.
I received them and they were as advertised. No scuffs, a pristine sole, and barely worn without any other blemishes except for the one tiny spot on the white part of the external quarter of the right shoe's leather upper. That spot was like a tiny sore on the roof of my mouth that I couldn't leave alone. I ordered a white shoe cream to cover it. I waited several weeks for it to come in the mail. The USPS lost the order. I had the retailer resend it. Finally, it arrived. I applied it and it did fuck all. So then I took a bit of acetone to the spot. The acetone immediately stripped away the acrylic and resolene foundation off to reveal the cancer beneath. A factory defect in the leather. Every attempt I made to repair the defect resulted in a heightened state of distress. Soon I was stripping off the white acrylic on the other shoe. I sanded away at the leather to make both shoes match. In a fit of frustration, I took an exacto blade to the shoes and gouged and nicked the leather with my imprecise surgical scraping. I began to feel that I had been had. I don't even think these are Crockett & Jones. Maybe some knock-off factory reject off a limited line of shoe that was hastily released to coincide with the opening of the 2013 Great Gatsby movie. Of course. What sort of seller would sell scoundrel shoes but a scoundrel? So here they are. Sitting on my work table and in a very sorry state because I couldn't leave well enough alone.