V335: eBay Find of the Year: Antique Button Boots…That FIT!

In my recent eBay haunting, I’ve collected a number of interesting items – a leather punch, a cast iron fluting iron, two early Victorian slippers, and a pair of Edwardian button boots.

As with all the antique shoes I buy, I veer towards oldies that have seen better centuries.  Usually they’re wrinkled, they’re flakey, they’re teeny-tiny, and they’re cheap, all great attributes to have for study pieces, rather than display.  The idea of *wearing* these doesn’t even enter my head.

The real McCoy – 100-year-old button boots…on my feet! I normally wear a 7.5 B width.

…Except for these button boots.  I got them on eBay for a shockingly low price, thinking it’d be nice to have them in my growing collection, as a reference point for Tavistock.  I didn’t even read the measurements, but when they arrived, looking like they’d been run over by a truck, they kindof looked…well…surprisingly big, for Edwardian shoes.  Lo and behold, they fit!  I mean…they REALLY fit (I’d say like gloves, but they’re shoes, so that doesn’t really work.)

So Chris and I took some shoe cream to them, along with most of a tin of Kiwi Parade Gloss, and hot-spooned these puppies into the wee hours of the morning.  After all was said and done, holy cannoli, they’re shiny and lovely and quenched.

After polishing. The leather is still worn, but in some places it almost looks new.

I wore them tonight to the High Desert Steam Christmas Party, and I can’t wait to wear them again to whatever the next Victorian event might be.  The costume/history geek in me is squeeing with delight!

My “formal” Steampunk costume – I need to make a shorter skirt now to show off the boots!