family inherits a building and discover a 1960s shoe store inside

[Liberal_in_LA]

An American family have unearthed an Aladdin's cave of mint-condition vintage shoes in an old building they inherited from their grandparents.

The building operated as a shoe store from the 1940s until the 1960s, but the doors had been locked for decades.

Until now.

One of the family members posted the rare find to online noticeboard Reddit recently, but stopped short of revealing the location, so as to prevent any break-ins.


















http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2836369/Family-unearth-amazing-vintage-shoe-store-locked-decades-inheriting-old-building-footwear-perfect-condition-albeit-little-dusty.html

[Fawke Em]

1. Those shoes are probably better made than the shoes we have now. eom

[customerserviceguy]

2. I doubt any of them were made in China

by child laborers.

[Liberal_in_LA]

4. no- name of some of the manufacturers

[PSPS]

11. I don't think even one of those brands exists today.

A quick search revealed information on only one:

Dolly Preston 1922-1987

[Recursion]

51. Huh. Mostly European.

Rattazzi, Lion/Lionnette, and Stride Slippers were all Italian brands.

[Bohunk68]

78. The article is from the Daily Mail in the UK.

So, of course they are European brands.

[Politicalboi]

3. I bet they were

When I was a kid I always wanted PF Fliers. The TV said you could run faster, and jump higher.

[secondvariety]

27. If I'm not mistaken,

the blue high tops ARE PF Flyers. And yes, the TV ads were true.

[Kablooie]

38. PF Flyers are still available.

They are now owned by New Balance and they've restored some of the original shoes.
I have a pair of black hi tops that make me run faster and jump higher.




http://www.pfflyers.com/

[Jack Rabbit]

75. I rememeber when PF Flyers sponsored the Mickey Mouse Club

They brought me Annette five days a week, but they didn't make me run any faster or jump any higher.

However, I believe those shoes in the picture in the OP are US Keds, but you can't tell one from the other without a scorecard.

[Kablooie]

81. Eh. Keds were clunky. But Red Ball Jets were better than PF Flyers.

[joeybee12]

7. Definitely...now our shoes are throwaways...not mean to last...

Those made during this time were expected to last a few years.

[SoCalDem]

17. I still have two pairs of shoes I bought in 1968

They were made in Italy and I paid close to $4o per pair back then.. They are a piece of artwork..even though they no longer fit me, I have kept them in their original boxes..

[joeybee12]

23. I believe it...I wish I had kept some of my old shoes...

When you went shopping for shoes it was a once a year thing, and you bought shoes you could grow into...they were an investment back then,

[bhikkhu]

83. It depends on what you buy

I walk 8-10 miles a day at work, and its pretty hard on shoes (and feet!). I'd been buying cheap $25 pairs at a discount store and wore out a pair every 4 months or so. Then the last time I got lucky and found a pair of nearly new Doc Marten's industrial work shoes online for $20. They've lasted 6 months so far, and still holding up really well.

[JDPriestly]

71. I would like to know what percentage of them was made in the US.

That would be an interesting statistic if compared to a similar shoe store of today. THat would tell us a lot about what is wrong with our economy.

[BobbyBoring]

72. I can't tell you about shoes alone....

But in the early 60s, 95% of all our clothing (assuming shoes are clothing). Now, that number is 5%.

Yes, that has hurt our economy. Also, most of the better "off the rack" clothes were sold in small, family owned stores. This applied to shoes too.

Here's the best part. These small, family owned businesses actually paid their employees enough money to live on.

We've been on the wrong track in America for many many years.

[whatchamacallit]

5. They can make a mint selling these to hipsters at huge markup n/t

[drmeow]

9. Not just to hipsters

I'd love to have some of those shoes!

[sharp_stick]

19. Oh Oh

You may be a hipster and not know it.

Are you sporting a beard, flannel shirt, oversize dark glasses or an undercut hair cut? Do you drink PBR and claim to do so because it's cheap?

Do you have an almost unbearable urge to move to Williamsburg in Brooklyn or do you own or desire a fixed speed bike?

[Liberal Lolita]

29. I'm no hipster

but I would definitely wear the pair in the second picture. That is a cute pair of shoes.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

31. Me, neither. And I'm kinda diggin' those rainbow espadrilles.

And some of those leather wingtip-ish boots. Ooh, more:

[Liberal Lolita]

33. Liking this pair too

[link:|

[WorseBeforeBetter]

35. That heel's a bit high for me, but I can definitely picture...

the dress or skirt I'd wear with those shoes.

[amandabeech]

45. These are all cute and the leather looks like quality material.

Do any of them come in a 7 1/2 Wide?

[WorseBeforeBetter]

48. Ha, ha.

I've already paired those top flats with some cuffed trousers and the perfect top -- à la Katherine Hepburn!

[JaneyVee]

34. OMG I was just gonna post about the ones in the 2nd pic.

I need those in my life!

[Samantha]

57. I love those too

Just too cool.

Sam

[drmeow]

56. No

If anything I'm an anti-hipster: a goth with shades of steampunk living in a climate where it is just too darn hot to wear docs and velvet most of the time and without any decent clubs to wear my club clothes. In defiance, however, I do alternate between black, red, and blonde highlights with each cut in my spiky - or what would be spiky if I wasn't too lazy to style it - hair (which usually results in a tricolored look very much like my tabby's). I just adore shoes - especially classic looking, high quality shoes!

Although there is one thing I will thank the hipsters for - I HATED HATED HATED the wide bottom pants and, while I still hate the hip huggers, the hipsters brought in the skinny jeans (and narrower pants hems, in general) which means I can finally buy pants again!

[snooper2]

82. You can mock folks drinking crappy PBR since it now stands for Pabst Blue Russia

[Odin2005]

10. I was thinking the same thing!

A stupid fucking hipster and his money are easily parted.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

30. Is there anyone not on your hit list?

Boomers, hipsters...

[Scootaloo]

53. If he wants something and buys it, is that stupid?

[bhikkhu]

86. The hipsters I know lean toward quality and durability in fashion

which tends to be a little old-fashioned style-wise and costs a little more. Except when it comes from thrift shops, which was always the preferred thing - pendleton plaids and work pants and so forth. And old Schwinns to convert to simple rugged single-speed bikes for basic transportation.

I don't know where the hate comes from, but it kind of reminds me of the old hippie-bashing thing..

[Odin2005]

88. It's because Hipsters are almost invariably smug, snobbish, and elitist about it.

[hifiguy]

69. That was my first thought.

They are sitting on a small fortune.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

87. Worse... Rockabillies

[NaturalHigh]

6. Wow - now that's cool!

Not only will this likely be a financial boon for this family, it's kind of like taking a step back in history for a little while.

[Politicalboi]

8. At the link

There are more pictures and one of the store front looking out. Gives the name of store and there's some graffiti on the window. Someone might recognize that. Or the name. I remember shops in my childhood. The shoe boxes alone are worth money too.

Storefront: From this photo you can see the shop was called First Class Shoe Store

[herding cats]

12. I would love to have a few pairs of those.

Not that I could ever afford it, but the quality of some of those look amazing!

[treestar]

13. Cool bit of history

How strange nothing changed in that time period

[starroute]

14. None of those shoes look 1960s

The rainbow colored flat is probably the newest, and that looks like what I was wearing about 1958-59. The black pump above it has an Art Moderne, late 30s-early 40s look to it. And those lace-up hightop men's shoes can't be any later than about 1910.

On edit: I just check around a bit, and those extremely pointy-toed men's shoes were worn into the 1920s. But "by the mid twenties the two rounded out and then took on a sharp, blunt square toe with a bulbous top, and slightly rounded edges." And the hightop boots seem to have been gone by the 1930s, when shoes in general became more casusl. See http://www.vintagedancer.com/1920s/mens-1920s-and-1930s-shoes-styles/

[Warpy]

15. I'll take a wild guess and say it closed in about 1964

but a lot of the stock seems quite a bit older.

What's amazing to me in all these pictures isn't the layer of dust on the display items, it's the complete lack of rat shit and other signs of rodents in the store. I know the old stores in Boston that were closed when owners died and none of the heirs wanted the hassle of cleaning them out always had rodents galore.

The stock from that store is going to be worth a great deal of money on Etsy. The shoes don't even look dried out.

[valerief]

16. Groovy. I wonder if they have a fluoroscope in there, too. nt

[ChazInAz]

64. Oh, yeah!

I remember getting my weird-looking feets X-rayed in the Sears shoe department in the Fifties.
One of my many hobbies is cordwainery, and just looking at the workmanship on those old British and European shoes had me drooling and somewhat envious! I think the black brogan in the first picture is a German shoe.
Those old things were lock-stitched together, and not merely glued, so the only way for them to come apart is to be CUT apart!

[valerief]

77. Cordwainery! Wow, I learned a new word. What a cool hobby. nt

[Enthusiast]

18. OMG! Those were good shoes back then.

Some shoes today are just awful.

But I'm glad they are cheaper now that they are made with slave labor.

[malaise]

21. If those shoes were made today and locked up for less than a year

the soles would separate. They are beautifully made shoes/

[Paper Roses]

20. Great Fun. What goes around comes around.

I hope the people who inherited this find a great outlet for these old shoes. Better made than what is available to most of us now. Fun stuff, I wish this was near me. Hope the new owners find a great outlet for these old shoes. I remember when shoes were comfortable. I think these were of the era.

[jillan]

22. This E-Seller is drooling!

[peacebird]

24. I would love to have the first and third pair from the pictures!

[secondvariety]

25. Any Red Ball Jets?

The shoes of my childhood...

[IDemo]

50. My first exposure to false advertising

"They'll make you run faster and jump higher!" Mom bought me a pair and my first action was to sprint across the yard...at my regular non-super speed. I was crushed (age 5).

[ProfessorGAC]

61. You Had A Defective Pair

They must have sent those out without energizing them. Of course, the pair i had were WAY better since it made me superhuman fast.

Wait. Maybe that was a dream i had.

[SoapBox]

26. Whoa...talk about stepping back in time.

That last picture...the trunk...and then looking at the ceiling adornment. Under the trunk...does that box same Kellogg's Frosted Flakes?



Oh! There are even more pictures at the link. I can't help but notice some boxes...Made in U.S.A.

The store name was First Class Shoe Store.

[rocktivity]

28. Wasn't this an episode of Married With Children?

rocktivity

[hifiguy]

70. Indeed it was. Al discovered a big cache of 1970s shoes.

[NBachers]

32. I can just feel and smell what it used to be like to put these on and walk away in them.

They must also have a stash of these foot measuring devices that the shoe salesmen always used:

[Half-Century Man]

39. Brannock Device n/t

[No Vested Interest]

42. I wonder if there is one of those foot x-ray machines were used to love

as children. Now I'm talking back in the 40's when I loved to see my feet in the shoes I was trying on.

I'm not sure when those were phased out, but I don't recall my children using them in the late 60's, when we bought their Stride-Rites, and they got Potsy balloon, one of which invariably drifted out of the car before we got home, causing consternation all around.

Of course, my kids wore high-top shoes the first year, as did I, perhaps until my second or third year.

[Sirveri]

58. Those X-ray machines used to leak radiation and spiked cancer rates.

Like seriously, the devices were shoddily made and thus leaked X-rays all over giving serious doses to the workers who used them, not to mention giving a continual dose to the feet for however long they were used by the individual. Most of the kids ended up being OK because they weren't exposed to them all the time, the workers however...

Incredibly dangerous machines, they would have to call the Department of Energy to get it out of there.

[No Vested Interest]

59. I believe you that those machines were capable of doing damage.

Of course, we knew nothing about that at the time and would spend a (relatively) considerable time looking at the image of the bones in our feet.
I'm sure the store owners knew little to nothing of possible harm to themselves or consumers.

I wonder when someone finally figured out that it was not a good idea to expose oneself to unlimited x-rays.

[Sirveri]

84. probably about 10-20 years after hiroshima.

Most of the radiation health effects weren't really known until after we studied what we did to a very large sample group of Japanese. Though we already had ideas that the stuff was dangerous in the 30's. We actually have a history as a species of doing stupid stuff with radioactive materials, like using radium to paint things because it glowed in the dark (then being surprised that all the people who painted it got cancer). Curie's husband actually studied it by putting radioactive materials on his body, then he was all like, oh look I developed bleeding sores! So yeah, they would want some professionals to remove the machine if they found one.

[secondvariety]

46. Those are some

sportin' loafers. The sole looks like it would last forever.

[diabeticman]

36. Mad Men production is probably rushing over,

[nilram]

54. yeah, or some movie production house

I hope they get top dollar.

[TeamPooka]

73. They are done filming the last episodes. Finished a month ago. nt

[Louisiana1976]

37. What a cool find.

[JI7]

40. just the shoe boxes alone would probably get a decent amount of money

[ProdigalJunkMail]

41. Amazing find...

very cool!

sP

[B Calm]

43. any Monkee Boots?

[OregonBlue]

44. What a fun story. Thanks.

[3catwoman3]

47. I am drooling!

What a great find. It must feel like stepping into a time tunnel.

[Cha]

49. Style.. Goes Around Comes Around! what a find.. especially for a shoe fetish person!

Mahalo LiLA

[brewens]

52. A similar but not so spectacular find in my town not too many years ago. Just a local mom

and pop store that closed it's doors and never sold. I'm not sure exactly why it was never cleaned out. It sat there just as it was for close to 30 years with evidently no damage or breakins.

It was right in my neighborhood too. Had I known, (not that I would have) I could have gone down there any day with a truck, forced open the door and loaded whatever I wanted up and no one would have probably even questioned me as long as I acted like I was just doing a job.

No great fortune really but there was a quite a bit in vintage signs, magazines, baseball cards and whatever to pick through. A few thousand dollars worth of booty for sure just sitting there all those years.

I just talked to a guy outside a store that has one of those abandoned car stories. It was just a Ford Pinto though. One of the last models, a '79 or 80 I think. He bought it for $500 bucks with 23,000 original miles on it and is driving it around. It was the usual story. Old lady that couldn't drive anymore and it just sat all those years. He had to replace all the hoses and everything but it's running just fine. I saw that and who it was and had to ask. No one restores a freakin' Pinto! Why would you? I wasn't surprised.

[Tree-Hugger]

55. Come to mama

Those shoes in pic #2......I hope they are a size 6.

[xloadiex]

60. Daily Mail failed to mention this was over a year ago

The people on Reddit were offering him a pretty penny for quite a few pairs of shoes. He was actually considering it but had to get the approval from his family. IIRC he said the leather was very dried out on many of them. I didn't follow up to see if he actually sold any.

[randome]

62. And in the darkest corner of the building, they found Al Bundy.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Precision and concision. That's the game.[/center][/font][hr]

[Brigid]

63. Do they have those rainbow flats in a size 6?

I love those!

[Ykcutnek]

65. This was a Married With Children episode.

[UglyGreed]

66. I love stuff like this

"The Village Green Preservation Society"


We are the Village Green Preservation Society
God save Donald Duck, Vaudeville and Variety
We are the Desperate Dan Appreciation Society
God save strawberry jam and all the different varieties
Preserving the old ways from being abused
Protecting the new ways for me and for you
What more can we do
We are the Draught Beer Preservation Society
God save Mrs. Mopp and good Old Mother Riley
We are the Custard Pie Appreciation Consortium
God save the George Cross and all those who were awarded them
We are the Sherlock Holmes English Speaking Vernacular
Help save Fu Manchu, Moriarty and Dracula
We are the Office Block Persecution Affinity
God save little shops, china cups and virginity
We are the Skyscraper condemnation Affiliate
God save tudor houses, antique tables and billiards
Preserving the old ways from being abused
Protecting the new ways for me and for you
What more can we do
God save the Village Green.

[Tsiyu]

67. They need to get in touch with wardrobe people in film and theater

They might love to have some of those vintage shoes for movies and plays.

One of my kids rents a floor of an old building in the middle of a very historic Southern city. This building used to be a department store. The kids use it as band practice and recording space.

They took me on a tour of the place not long ago. They wanted me to go up on the roof with them to see the city. As we made our way to the top floor, our "tour guide" said "Tsiyu, turn around and look."

I did. And amidst the old sewing notions and 60's era signage, there was a door. And the door said:

WHITE WOMEN


I just about lost my shit. I grew up during the times when they had separate restrooms, but I was up north in Yankee land where I never had to see such in my town. It was shocking to see it.

Then I had to hunt for the other bathroom. In a scuzzy area next to the ladder where we climbed to the roof, there was a bathroom with the door open. I closed the door and read ;

COLORED


I want to take some pictures of the doors but they creep my out so badly.

I only wish there were just a bunch of shoes in that place.

But then, I realize we have really come a long way from those times in the minds of all good people. The racists and the hate-filled never caught on, but I'm glad the US government did.

[Omaha Steve]

68. I missed this yesterday

THANK YOU for posting.

K&R!

OS

[Lebam in LA]

74. Wonder if they have any women;s size 4

Getting very hard to find 4's anymore

[Arugula Latte]

76. Where is pinboy? We need some shoe puns.

Last edited Mon Nov 17, 2014, 09:17 PM - Edit history (1)

- Those old shoes have a lot of sole.
- My tongue is hanging out thinking about those vintage kicks.

Stuff like that.

[Tsiyu]

79. Heel be along shortly eom

[Arugula Latte]

85. Well, what's the delay? Why is he such a loafer?

[Tsiyu]

90. Everytime eyelet him have some slack

He's always sole late.

Maybe he's doing uppers again.

[Arugula Latte]

92. Hmm. Sounds like there's a wedge between you two.

[Tsiyu]

93. He pumps up my ulcers sometimes

But I'd never give him the boot from DU

[pinboy3niner]

96. My critics say I should stop posting groaners but I shall not be suede. nt

[treestar]

97. We knew you would be sneakering around

[Tsiyu]

100. That's a croc

I say leather be puns!

[pinboy3niner]

101. I jump in when I Choos

There is a time for everything...like rich Corinthian leather.

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

89. Maybe he's rebooting.

[Arugula Latte]

91. control-alt-defeet

[pinboy3niner]

95. Frankly, you guys have it covered just fine and I was afraid

I don't handle the agony of de feet very well.

[Historic NY]

80. Those high top wing tips can be found...

many coming in from Turkey, a Greek friend has a new pair in brown. There are people making them here too.

http://www.usalovelist.com/american-made-shoes-ultimate-source-list/

[Aerows]

94. SHOES!

:drool:

I love shoes, especially vintage shoes!

[pinboy3niner]

98. I knew this thread would draw you like a moth to a flame

It's like you have ESPshoes or something!

[Aerows]

99. These boots were made for walking

and that's just what they did, and on this day they marched along and camped out on this thread!