Paul Bond Boot Company

Thank you so much for yesterday's outpouring of support for my spin drying thrasher.  I've been doing this almost seven years and you made it my 4th most popular blip (stars/faves) behind three big milestones.  x

How ironic is it that just a couple of days after fracturing a couple of  phalanges and having my foot placed in a boot that I would be touring a boot factory.  The Paul Bond Boot Company is not a factory in the sense we often think of as a mass production outfit.  Rather, it is where handcrafted custom cowboy boots are made.  It is located in Nogales, Arizona, just a few kilometers from the Mexican border.  The first thing we learned was that Paul Bond, as a teenager, was employed by the U.S. Calvary to break broncos.The tour was amazing.  Art, the guy who manages the place for the family (Paul Bond passed away in 2012), gave a step-by-step explanation of how these magnificent customized boots are made.  The best part was watching the talented craftsmen as they each contributed to a single step in the process.

Where some boot factories mass produce up to 2000 pairs a day, Paul Bond produces that many in an entire year.  The attention to the tiniest detail is amazing.  Even the heels are created with leather, layer by layer by one craftsman then sanded perfectly by another.

Here's  a list of some of the people who wear (or have worn) Paul Bond's handcrafted, customized boots. I think you'll be amazed. There are signed photos from many of them thanking Paul for the finest boots they've ever worn hanging on the walls. So if you have $1000/£750/€850 to $3000/£2300/€2500 (or more) to invest in footwear of a lifetime, you might want to look them up.

In the extras you'll see examples of some of the boots, another of the 16 craftsmen, an antique sewing machine and some yet to be used materials.