Alden D1525 Color 8 Shell Cordovan Medallion Tip Blucher

Alden factory seconds medallion captoe bluchers, model # D1525.  Constructed on the Barrie last, with color 8 shell cordovan in an alt wien pattern, atop Alden's oil treated "waterlock" double leather soles.  Size US 8.5 D.   The handwritten script on the interior leather lining indicates this pair was manufactured in May of 2022.  Out of the box, the shade of color 8 on this pair was a mix of dark chocolate & cherry, in contrast to contemporary color 8 shell cordovan Aldens leaving the factory with a glossy, uniform eggplant shine.  The intentionally asymmetrical rectangular stitch patterns on the back heel wall further adds to this pair's wabi-sabi charm.  This pair was purchased from TSM in late November 2025.  I wore it daily on a weeklong trip to Vienna in December, and this pair has since been boxed up unworn.  Weather that week was foggy with daily drizzles, rendering all the roads and sidewalks inside the ringstrasse wet with a surface layer moisture that persisted around the clock.   Whilst Alden's waterlock soles are designed to protect the leather soles from absorbing moisture, the soles fared quite poorly against the combined forces of wet surfaces sprinkled with loose rocks and road gravel.  The wear & tear observed on the sole in photo 20, including all of the little Viennese stowaway rock pebbles stuck in the sole that followed me home back to the US, were incurred just through 6 days of wear and approximately 50k steps walking outdoors.   Cosmetic defects on this pair of factory seconds: (1)  Photo 14 -   horizontal line scratched across the right shoe's rectangular stitch box at the back of the heel cup.  Very faint, surface level.  See blue circle.  (2)  Photo 15 -  scratch on the middle of the tongue, just below the bottom lace holes.  Despite how much I enjoy the handsome aesthetics of Alden's alt wien pattern, the Barrie last unfortunately just does not work for my foot shape (high instep, high arch, wide ball and toe splay, very narrow heel).  Ships with the white Alden factory seconds shoebox originally mated to this pair, without shoe trees.