I've been wearing an R.G. Bullco USA-made leather belt almost every day for the past 6+ years, and it shows no signs of failing. I know next to nothing about this company, and they don't have much of an online presence, but I see that you can buy their belts online for somewhere in the $25-$45 range. I bought mine from a local shop. Nothing fancy, but it works.
I had to take off the belt I was wearing to check, very similar to the Hanks product but it's from "main street Forge," likewise made in USA with some flavor of lifetime warranty and built like the proverbial brick shithouse (or Yamaha XS1100, whichever analogy suits you). Got it for Christmas last year and have worn it almost every single day, 7 days a week. I have a second, black one that I also got that I have not even worn a single time. Similar to my Thorogood work boots, I like a simple sturdy thing that I can use for many different things (I backpacked this spring in both the steel toe boots and that belt).
Thanks for this. I’ve been wearing a carbon fiber Grip 6 belt for the past few years but have wanting to go back to a good leather belt. Boot Barn and our local store (Scott Colburn Western Wear for Detroit people) didn’t have what I was looking for.
I LOVED my red MB-Tex wallet from Couch. Sadly, it lasted maybe two years before cracking at the fold. The red GMC wallet that replaced it did about the same. I ended up with one of those goofy Ridge wallets and for how lame I think they are, I find it much more convenient. Front pocket carry made a huge difference with my back.
Even worse, this isn’t even a real Ridge wallet. It’s a $10 knock off that I got free from Rocky Mountain ATV with my Black Friday order. I suspect that they were made in the same sweat shop.
Cool..I can’t carry my license in the center part of my battered Kenneth Cole trifold anymore (have almost lost it twice), and the Ridge wallets are sure intriguing, except for the “made in China” thing!
After watching my deeply sighing father haul that chunk of Seventies hand tooled leather from his back pocket throughout my childhood? No, I've never once tried to carry a wallet that way.
Also has more security with it in that it’s going to be harder for a pickpocket to grab anything from in front.
My only issue with one of those new-style wallets is that I have an RFID pass used to access my office suite. (One of those things that people normally have on a lanyard around their neck, but which I’d leave in the car at LEAST once a week!) If one of these wallets had one pocket on the outside, out of the “faraday cage,” it’d be perfect!
Spouse gave me a King's Loot Money Clip wallet last birthday, which features an outside pocket (with thumb hole for quick ejection) which might suit your needs. One caveat is that I don't currently have cards for doors using technology more advanced than mag stripe, so your mileage with an RFID card in that spot may vary.
Given the original post, the second caveat is that this wallet, alleged to be made with "the finest leather from Tuscany," is surely imported from China. $99 with "lifetime warranty." I'm happy enough to suggest searching for a similar design.
I stopped carrying a wallet during the depths of the pandemic when everything was closed. Haven't looked back. A cyclist friend put me on to flat rubber bands to hold my license and a couple of credit cards together. So nice to have less bulk in my pocket. I look forward to universal acceptance of digital IDs and mobile payments so that I can shed the last few physical cards.
Jack, sorry to go off topic, but what’s your email? I’ve been in a rented Wagoneer for the last month (Lexus GX got stolen, long story) and could try my hand at a rental review.
I am currently wearing a hanks gun belt. My only complaint is I never actually carry a gun and it's 2 inches longer than I should've ordered because of that.
I go two miles to work and two miles home 90% of the time. I should just leave a gun in my desk drawer if some disgruntled client comes to shoot up the place
Come on Jack, a shoe horn at HORWEEN is $160, and the $200 cordovan belt is made in. Drum Roll Please, 🇩🇪 Germany 🇩🇪. Hanks Leather Goods price points are close to the imported belts at Macy’s or Bontons so there are potential purchases. 🙃🙃
And for those of us who are dorks and almost exclusively wear pants with elastic waistbands, they have wallets and other stuff, too! Nice! Of course, I just bought a wallet from Main Street Forge who seems to make their stuff in Michigan, but maybe next time I need a wallet...
i load my bags pretty heavy. the dunhill bag broke one of its metal end attachments. my dunhill belt broke something unfixable. my dunhill jacket lost a button early on. parallel topic: seems like the most expensive jackets or outdoor wear lose their buttons much sooner than ordinary stuff; i've noticed this for decades
I like ultralight wallets and I can recommend the Flowfold wallet made in Maine out of recycled sailcloth, a synthetic material. I like that it doesn’t absorb moisture like a leather wallet on a hot humid day. I’ve had mine for years and it looks brand new. I consider it to be the best minimalist wallet out there. Its biggest fault may be that it’s so light you find yourself checking to make sure it’s still in your pocket. I’ve just got the basic black bi-fold. https://www.flowfold.com/collections/wallets
Ridge is made in Shenzhen. If you want a minimalist wallet made in USA, I've had a Trayvax for years and it's tough as nails. Grip 6 also is made in USA.
Well, this is a timely post. I noticed today that my old Cheapy Chinee nondescript brown belt is disintegrating and really didn't want to go to Big Box Inc. to buy a new one. I think I'll give Hank's a try.
Speaking of quality products: I'd pay $5000 for a 22 cu ft refrigerator with a valid and enforceable 30-year warranty. Don't suppose you can help me out with that...
Try a Kelvinator, I think the one in mom’s house when she passed away in 2010 was purchased new in 1949 when dad finished building the house. I do not remember it ever being repaired. Now granted it did not have ice/filtered water in the door and you had to pull out the metal ice trays and pull up on a lever attached to the metal diver that separated the ice cubes to get ice. And you better not forget to fill the trays with water from the faucet and put it back in the freezer or you would get your head slapped. And don’t think about moving that refrigerator because it weighed about 500 pounds and did not have wheels. But if you want one that lasts you can not go wrong with a Kelvinator.
Plastic and computers are two things I wish we could disinvent.
The thing is that polymers are miracle materials within certain limits, but they're almost always used as cheap junk to lower manufacturing costs. Computers have allowed companies to communicate in real time with any part of the world, enabling the destruction of national economies and the outsourcing of tens of millions of jobs.
At this point, I'm afraid the solution is legislative. CEO J. Clayton Pennybags IV and VP of HR Melinda E. Crawford-Bennings should no longer be allowed to send 30,000 jobs from Ohio to Guangzhou to save 193 bucks a day in aggregate labor costs, or force work-from-home IT guys to relocate from Topeka to Frisco while STILL NOT paying them enough to afford a chunk of the local real estate market.
In honor of Wednesday's topic: Fuck this company and fuck American workers. I only buy the product with the lowest labor costs (regardless of the actual price of the thing) made by slave labor under the most appalling conditions imaginable because I don't care about anyone but myself, least of all my fellow Americans.
At Horween prices, it seems awfully more cost effective to buy the tools, learn the basics, and make your own (albeit lower quality) goods. At least that's how it looks to me, whose time and image aren't worth much. Am I way off base here?
Now I'm imagining a USA in which leatherworking, along with woodshop and auto repair, were part of the national boys' curriculum.
Hey Mr. C., you've piqued my interest. I'm something of a clotheshorse, I like making my own stuff where possible, and I'm expert at sharpening implements of any kind. Other than an awl, a razor-knife, a rivet gun, and a bench with clamps and a redneck leather stretcher, what tools would you recommend for making belts? I have a good source for cured buffalo hide.
That curriculum will never return unless there is a major cultural change. It was eliminated by design. Boys are not allowed to learn boy things. I was lucky to have gone to a technical & trade high school. It was originally all boys but they started admitting girls then eventually they tore the whole thing down and replaced it with a computer technology school.
Indeed. If the good people at Hanks Belts happen to see this, I hope that they know that rather than being a childish, vulgar rant, it is actually brilliant satire on par with Orwell or even Swift!
Larry, I'd like to talk to you about making guitar straps from leather recovered from junkyard Cadillacs. Please drop me an email to: rokem@netzero.net
One of my best friends is Mexican. We’ve smoked a lot of Swishers together. Strictly wood tips though, he’s a classy dude.
That reminds me, like 10 years ago we found a gas station selling Swisher-flavored (and branded) eCigs. Apparently they were discontinued. I think vaping is lame, but man those things were so smooth.
AK. You just recited the Uniparty platform, got to take a break from bing watching the Hanoi Jane Network and MSDNC…. It is effecting your outlook. 😁😁😁
You have to be one of the dumbest smart people and one day i hope you get to enjoy the rewards of parenthood so you can look back at how big of a retard you are being. You are a middle aged selfish teenager
Like (almost) everyone else, I work for some form of compensation, typically cash. If someone were ready, willing, and able to perform the same service at an identical quality and speed level for a lower fee / comp package, then it would be unbelievably selfish of me to believe I had more claim to the opportunity because of where I was born versus my competitor.
The decline in AE quality corresponded with the PE ownership. But really, the extent of that decline is overstated. AE is fine for the (perpetually discounted) price, and customer service is good.
I frequently go out of my way to buy products made in first world countries, because I view that as a proxy for quality, conscientiousness, and attention to detail.
But I also recognize that MY preferences are not representative of the broader market; most consumers want the lowest possible price, period. Look in this thread itself and see how many comments amount to “OMG TOO EXPENSIVE.” Why don’t you attack those posters?
Finally, you failed to note that all of my arguments from Wednesday were predicated on immigrant labor doing the same job for less money, not an inferior job for less money.
Ive been to a mcdonalds with 100% immigrant labor and ive been to a McDonald’s staffed by midwest teenagers. Theyre not doing the same job for less money. Theyre doing a worse job for less money.
"I frequently go out of my way to buy products made in first world countries, because I view that as a proxy for quality, conscientiousness, and attention to detail."
Why, then, would you want to import workers from third world countries that have no cultures of quality, conscientiousness, and attention to detail?
I bought a leather belt many, many years ago that I still wear daily. The brand escapes me but it was sold in a shop that also carried Boulet boots and was marketed as Canadian made so I can only imagine that there was some relation. (For those who don't know, Boulet makes most of the dress footwear for the Canadian Forces, and was a going concern during WW2 as well.)
I liked it so much I went and bought another about a year later - this was actually a mistake because the first one just never wore out. I had assumed it wouldn't last, like every other belt I'd purchased before then. It broke in nicely, and that was that. 10+ years later and here we are, and at least I do have a spare. I feel like the buckle will fatigue and fall off long before the cow parts do. Heck, I even use it as a cat toy, damn things love chasing it and chewing on the end when I'm changing after work.
Spectacle Eyeworks is a Canadian company that produces all of its frames in Canada. Pricey, but a great alternative to the Luxottica empire cranking frames out in China.
When a weld for the bridge on my glasses broke, instead of buying imported frames or expensive domestic/Euro frames, I had an eyeglass repair shop in Columbus fix them for about $70. If I didn't tell you that they've been repaired, you wouldn't be able to spot it, and the turnaround was less than 3 days. All American Eyeglass Repair, they have about a dozen locations around the USA.
I tried Gustin, but my 34" waist jeans showed up with an actual 31.5" waist, once I realized my only recourse was to wait another 5 months to try again I just threw them in a closet hoping I run into someone skinny who is into selvedge raw denim.
If you want them they are yours for what ever you're willing to pay for them. Brand new Straight The 1968, only tried on to just above the knee before I realized it wasn't going to happen.
I've been wearing an R.G. Bullco USA-made leather belt almost every day for the past 6+ years, and it shows no signs of failing. I know next to nothing about this company, and they don't have much of an online presence, but I see that you can buy their belts online for somewhere in the $25-$45 range. I bought mine from a local shop. Nothing fancy, but it works.
Pinned.
I had to take off the belt I was wearing to check, very similar to the Hanks product but it's from "main street Forge," likewise made in USA with some flavor of lifetime warranty and built like the proverbial brick shithouse (or Yamaha XS1100, whichever analogy suits you). Got it for Christmas last year and have worn it almost every single day, 7 days a week. I have a second, black one that I also got that I have not even worn a single time. Similar to my Thorogood work boots, I like a simple sturdy thing that I can use for many different things (I backpacked this spring in both the steel toe boots and that belt).
Thanks for this. I’ve been wearing a carbon fiber Grip 6 belt for the past few years but have wanting to go back to a good leather belt. Boot Barn and our local store (Scott Colburn Western Wear for Detroit people) didn’t have what I was looking for.
I LOVED my red MB-Tex wallet from Couch. Sadly, it lasted maybe two years before cracking at the fold. The red GMC wallet that replaced it did about the same. I ended up with one of those goofy Ridge wallets and for how lame I think they are, I find it much more convenient. Front pocket carry made a huge difference with my back.
The Grip6 wallet is the Ridge wallet, only USA MADE.
Ill have to look at it then!
Trayvax also makes a very nice minimalist wallet here in the USA
Even worse, this isn’t even a real Ridge wallet. It’s a $10 knock off that I got free from Rocky Mountain ATV with my Black Friday order. I suspect that they were made in the same sweat shop.
Cool..I can’t carry my license in the center part of my battered Kenneth Cole trifold anymore (have almost lost it twice), and the Ridge wallets are sure intriguing, except for the “made in China” thing!
Front pocket wallet carry is a game changer. Especially if you take out all the crap you don’t really need.
I have been doing this since high school so it didn't mess with my back.
same
one of my better ideas
After watching my deeply sighing father haul that chunk of Seventies hand tooled leather from his back pocket throughout my childhood? No, I've never once tried to carry a wallet that way.
Also has more security with it in that it’s going to be harder for a pickpocket to grab anything from in front.
My only issue with one of those new-style wallets is that I have an RFID pass used to access my office suite. (One of those things that people normally have on a lanyard around their neck, but which I’d leave in the car at LEAST once a week!) If one of these wallets had one pocket on the outside, out of the “faraday cage,” it’d be perfect!
Spouse gave me a King's Loot Money Clip wallet last birthday, which features an outside pocket (with thumb hole for quick ejection) which might suit your needs. One caveat is that I don't currently have cards for doors using technology more advanced than mag stripe, so your mileage with an RFID card in that spot may vary.
Given the original post, the second caveat is that this wallet, alleged to be made with "the finest leather from Tuscany," is surely imported from China. $99 with "lifetime warranty." I'm happy enough to suggest searching for a similar design.
Tuscany is a Chinese province, right? 😉😉
I was going to mention the Grip 6 belt. I've got four belts and three buckles and have been very happy with all of them. Definitely recommended.
I tried the merino socks and was less impressed... they pilled up on the first wash. that aside, they were quite comfortable and very durable.
I stopped carrying a wallet during the depths of the pandemic when everything was closed. Haven't looked back. A cyclist friend put me on to flat rubber bands to hold my license and a couple of credit cards together. So nice to have less bulk in my pocket. I look forward to universal acceptance of digital IDs and mobile payments so that I can shed the last few physical cards.
Jack, sorry to go off topic, but what’s your email? I’ve been in a rented Wagoneer for the last month (Lexus GX got stolen, long story) and could try my hand at a rental review.
I'll drop you a note
I saw what must have been a high six-figure motorhome (looked like a charter bus) flat towing a Wagoneer or Grand Wagoneer behind it this morning.
What a life.
*EDIT* - On further review of motorhome prices, what I saw could have easily eclipsed more than a million dollars. Yeesh.
And from what I understand, especially since COVID, the quality of any RV is usually absolute garbage!
durable endelessly reliable and resonably priced is how this non american has viewed classic american products so this is a great return to form
tom taylor has some killer python belts i feel like i need a lot however
https://tomtaylorbelts.com/products/white-python-belt-straps
NEATO
I am currently wearing a hanks gun belt. My only complaint is I never actually carry a gun and it's 2 inches longer than I should've ordered because of that.
I have the same problem. Bought the gun belt then work keeps sending me to countries where I can't have a gun
I go two miles to work and two miles home 90% of the time. I should just leave a gun in my desk drawer if some disgruntled client comes to shoot up the place
You carrying a 2011 or something?
Nope. Just an idiot
Vegan belts. Huh, who wooda thunk it. Pretty cool.
I wonder if anyone is doing anything nice with hemp?
"I wonder if anyone is doing anything nice with hemp?"
i think most try to smoke it but i could be mistaken
No high, just a lot of coughing
I have my Adidas Hemp Jamaicans!
Hemp hemp horray!
https://www.hempitecture.com
Imported all the way from Vega.
That's 25 light years!
Come on Jack, a shoe horn at HORWEEN is $160, and the $200 cordovan belt is made in. Drum Roll Please, 🇩🇪 Germany 🇩🇪. Hanks Leather Goods price points are close to the imported belts at Macy’s or Bontons so there are potential purchases. 🙃🙃
And for those of us who are dorks and almost exclusively wear pants with elastic waistbands, they have wallets and other stuff, too! Nice! Of course, I just bought a wallet from Main Street Forge who seems to make their stuff in Michigan, but maybe next time I need a wallet...
i load my bags pretty heavy. the dunhill bag broke one of its metal end attachments. my dunhill belt broke something unfixable. my dunhill jacket lost a button early on. parallel topic: seems like the most expensive jackets or outdoor wear lose their buttons much sooner than ordinary stuff; i've noticed this for decades
I like ultralight wallets and I can recommend the Flowfold wallet made in Maine out of recycled sailcloth, a synthetic material. I like that it doesn’t absorb moisture like a leather wallet on a hot humid day. I’ve had mine for years and it looks brand new. I consider it to be the best minimalist wallet out there. Its biggest fault may be that it’s so light you find yourself checking to make sure it’s still in your pocket. I’ve just got the basic black bi-fold. https://www.flowfold.com/collections/wallets
I have a ridge and love it. No idea if its usa made or anything though
Ridge is made in Shenzhen. If you want a minimalist wallet made in USA, I've had a Trayvax for years and it's tough as nails. Grip 6 also is made in USA.
Well, this is a timely post. I noticed today that my old Cheapy Chinee nondescript brown belt is disintegrating and really didn't want to go to Big Box Inc. to buy a new one. I think I'll give Hank's a try.
Speaking of quality products: I'd pay $5000 for a 22 cu ft refrigerator with a valid and enforceable 30-year warranty. Don't suppose you can help me out with that...
good freaking luck finding a new fridge with that length of warranty.
the 1970 GM Frigidaire fridge in our family cabin is still going strong.
and the 1975ish freezer in my Mom's basement is still working fine.
I think my fridge warranty is two years. The one we replaced it for was 20 years and never had an issue but the wife didn't like it*
*it did suck but it was reliable
Try a Kelvinator, I think the one in mom’s house when she passed away in 2010 was purchased new in 1949 when dad finished building the house. I do not remember it ever being repaired. Now granted it did not have ice/filtered water in the door and you had to pull out the metal ice trays and pull up on a lever attached to the metal diver that separated the ice cubes to get ice. And you better not forget to fill the trays with water from the faucet and put it back in the freezer or you would get your head slapped. And don’t think about moving that refrigerator because it weighed about 500 pounds and did not have wheels. But if you want one that lasts you can not go wrong with a Kelvinator.
Plastic and computers are two things I wish we could disinvent.
The thing is that polymers are miracle materials within certain limits, but they're almost always used as cheap junk to lower manufacturing costs. Computers have allowed companies to communicate in real time with any part of the world, enabling the destruction of national economies and the outsourcing of tens of millions of jobs.
At this point, I'm afraid the solution is legislative. CEO J. Clayton Pennybags IV and VP of HR Melinda E. Crawford-Bennings should no longer be allowed to send 30,000 jobs from Ohio to Guangzhou to save 193 bucks a day in aggregate labor costs, or force work-from-home IT guys to relocate from Topeka to Frisco while STILL NOT paying them enough to afford a chunk of the local real estate market.
Love Hanks wallets!
In honor of Wednesday's topic: Fuck this company and fuck American workers. I only buy the product with the lowest labor costs (regardless of the actual price of the thing) made by slave labor under the most appalling conditions imaginable because I don't care about anyone but myself, least of all my fellow Americans.
At Horween prices, it seems awfully more cost effective to buy the tools, learn the basics, and make your own (albeit lower quality) goods. At least that's how it looks to me, whose time and image aren't worth much. Am I way off base here?
Now I'm imagining a USA in which leatherworking, along with woodshop and auto repair, were part of the national boys' curriculum.
Cool. Thanks for your insider perspective.
Hey Mr. C., you've piqued my interest. I'm something of a clotheshorse, I like making my own stuff where possible, and I'm expert at sharpening implements of any kind. Other than an awl, a razor-knife, a rivet gun, and a bench with clamps and a redneck leather stretcher, what tools would you recommend for making belts? I have a good source for cured buffalo hide.
That curriculum will never return unless there is a major cultural change. It was eliminated by design. Boys are not allowed to learn boy things. I was lucky to have gone to a technical & trade high school. It was originally all boys but they started admitting girls then eventually they tore the whole thing down and replaced it with a computer technology school.
Tandy, a leathercraft company which was the original founder of the Radio Shack chain, is still in business.
Indeed. If the good people at Hanks Belts happen to see this, I hope that they know that rather than being a childish, vulgar rant, it is actually brilliant satire on par with Orwell or even Swift!
Larry, I'd like to talk to you about making guitar straps from leather recovered from junkyard Cadillacs. Please drop me an email to: rokem@netzero.net
I'll smoke a cigar to that!
A Cuban cigar…. Right.😉😉
Whatever I can mooch off my landscaper
swisher sweets it is
He’s mexican not black! (I do my own landscaping for the most part)
One of my best friends is Mexican. We’ve smoked a lot of Swishers together. Strictly wood tips though, he’s a classy dude.
That reminds me, like 10 years ago we found a gas station selling Swisher-flavored (and branded) eCigs. Apparently they were discontinued. I think vaping is lame, but man those things were so smooth.
AK. You just recited the Uniparty platform, got to take a break from bing watching the Hanoi Jane Network and MSDNC…. It is effecting your outlook. 😁😁😁
It's telling that the Harris campaign brought Jane Fonda to go door-to-door in Ann Arbor rather than in Macomb county.
https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Essentials-Mens-Jeans-Black/dp/B0BPRSFTKR?ref_=ast_sto_dp&th=1&psc=1
From Cambodia? Perhaps if it was a cobra leather wristwatch strap...
It's murder on the dance floor!
Oh, I disagree.
He either failed to understand my arguments or willfully ignored them.
You should burn all of your Edward Greens and buy some ugly, pedestrian, poorly made* Allen Edmonds to replace them.
*And yes, they are poorly made; I have a friend who once worked for a PE firm that owned AE for a time:
https://www.brentwood.com/our-portfolio/allen-edmonds/
Furthermore, I hope the Great American Patriots at Hanks don’t have any grubby immigrants working for them (or in their supply chain)!
You have to be one of the dumbest smart people and one day i hope you get to enjoy the rewards of parenthood so you can look back at how big of a retard you are being. You are a middle aged selfish teenager
Wouldn't that require finding a willing female? If a guy like me could have children and grandchildren I suppose it's possible.
I am right, and you know it.
This comment section is full of guys who are scared to compete!
You need a girlfriend
do you also compete with illegals
Banking has all sorts of government regulations limiting competition. It’s basically communism!
Like (almost) everyone else, I work for some form of compensation, typically cash. If someone were ready, willing, and able to perform the same service at an identical quality and speed level for a lower fee / comp package, then it would be unbelievably selfish of me to believe I had more claim to the opportunity because of where I was born versus my competitor.
scott with both barrels here just letting him have it
The decline in AE quality corresponded with the PE ownership. But really, the extent of that decline is overstated. AE is fine for the (perpetually discounted) price, and customer service is good.
Yawn.
I frequently go out of my way to buy products made in first world countries, because I view that as a proxy for quality, conscientiousness, and attention to detail.
But I also recognize that MY preferences are not representative of the broader market; most consumers want the lowest possible price, period. Look in this thread itself and see how many comments amount to “OMG TOO EXPENSIVE.” Why don’t you attack those posters?
Finally, you failed to note that all of my arguments from Wednesday were predicated on immigrant labor doing the same job for less money, not an inferior job for less money.
Now, I’m going to light a Davidoff.
Ive been to a mcdonalds with 100% immigrant labor and ive been to a McDonald’s staffed by midwest teenagers. Theyre not doing the same job for less money. Theyre doing a worse job for less money.
"I frequently go out of my way to buy products made in first world countries, because I view that as a proxy for quality, conscientiousness, and attention to detail."
Why, then, would you want to import workers from third world countries that have no cultures of quality, conscientiousness, and attention to detail?
To make an extra dollar by undercutting the middle class of course
Hi Sherman.
Solid name. I should get a discount.
Why would I want a vegan belt??? its not like there is a shortage of steer hides.
We need more Made in The USA posts.
maybe you can eat it if you get really hungry
C’mon, this is too easy. It’s so you can tell EVERYONE that you have a vegan belt!
If a vegan does Crossfit, which does he tell you about first?
I bought a leather belt many, many years ago that I still wear daily. The brand escapes me but it was sold in a shop that also carried Boulet boots and was marketed as Canadian made so I can only imagine that there was some relation. (For those who don't know, Boulet makes most of the dress footwear for the Canadian Forces, and was a going concern during WW2 as well.)
I liked it so much I went and bought another about a year later - this was actually a mistake because the first one just never wore out. I had assumed it wouldn't last, like every other belt I'd purchased before then. It broke in nicely, and that was that. 10+ years later and here we are, and at least I do have a spare. I feel like the buckle will fatigue and fall off long before the cow parts do. Heck, I even use it as a cat toy, damn things love chasing it and chewing on the end when I'm changing after work.
"Boulet boots"
my father had a pair of cowboy boots he gave to me that were made by them
nice to buy canadian when possible
Spectacle Eyeworks is a Canadian company that produces all of its frames in Canada. Pricey, but a great alternative to the Luxottica empire cranking frames out in China.
hell yeah
thanks a bunch
very useful for when my eyes eventually stop working properly
When a weld for the bridge on my glasses broke, instead of buying imported frames or expensive domestic/Euro frames, I had an eyeglass repair shop in Columbus fix them for about $70. If I didn't tell you that they've been repaired, you wouldn't be able to spot it, and the turnaround was less than 3 days. All American Eyeglass Repair, they have about a dozen locations around the USA.
If you don't mind the wait, Gustin sells a very servicable Horween basic belt for under $100. It's the first one I reach for now.
Yes! I'm a gustin supporter to the proverbial max. That and LC king is all I wear, daily pants wise.
Funny - I'm wearing my black Hanks Gunner over a pair of Gustin BlackXBlack Rainbow Neps as we speak.
Proper.
Jack - how do the Gustin jeans fit? They look on the skinny/tight side thru the thighs even in the standard fit.
I have had good luck with the “straight” fit despite being chunky with large quads.
I tried Gustin, but my 34" waist jeans showed up with an actual 31.5" waist, once I realized my only recourse was to wait another 5 months to try again I just threw them in a closet hoping I run into someone skinny who is into selvedge raw denim.
Yeah their sizing can be odd.
This may explain why my Gustin XL shirt fits more like all of my L shirts from fifteen years ago.
You, uh, still looking for a skinny guy?
what is this grindr or something
I DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO KEEP ELASTANE OUT OF MY JEANS
If you want them they are yours for what ever you're willing to pay for them. Brand new Straight The 1968, only tried on to just above the knee before I realized it wasn't going to happen.
Same experience with Gustin. Dearborn has a new raw denim jean that is advertised as being US denim. Their 100% cotton denim is Mexican.
My 34 inch jeans are in the basement to hopefully be tried again!
In full transparency even if these actually measured to 34" they'd probably be a bit tight, but you gotta have goals.
Ill hit my goal and then think “i can eat what i want!” And the cycles starts over
really do be like that sometimes