Swedish combat boots, rubber and leather, brown, surplus

The Swedes rubberized their combat boots in the days of yore. This is an indestructible, rough, and tough boot made for rough and wet surroundings. Combined with suitable gaiters, they keep the wet shit away from the top part as well. Hot stuff around the world. Used milsurp from the time when people didn’t Facebook, they wrestled with bears.

Features

Extremely well made, tough ol' ankle boots, these are the classic Tretorn combat boots! No GTX, but good honest rubber and leather instead. Yes, the lower part is completely made from some pretty tough quality rubber and pretty damn stiff, probably even when it was new. We suspect there's a reason for this: the only way to wear the rubber out would be to bend it again and again, so the Swedes made the whole boot extra stiff to make the flexing minimal. Thus, an eternal boot.

The leather used on these is about 2.5 mm (0.1") thick and of extremely high quality, while the rubber is something that probably does not disintegrate ever. A very nice detail for a shoe model as old as these is the bellowed tongue that won't let water seep in from the sides. No wonder the British SAS favored these and the full leather variant during the Falkland conflict over the standard-issue DMS Boots.

On the heel, you'll find a ski groove, the kind that accommodates, say, the old Finnish ski bindings or just about any snowshoes. Couple that with the overall generous sizing for many pairs of socks and you have excellent, old school skiing boots!

A word of warning: the rubber of the soles is not nearly as supple as it was when new. This means it's probably not as grippy as it was back then (if it ever was grippy at all...). It's still tough as nails and will take ages to wear out. In addition, a cobbler should be able to glue on more rubber if needed.

Being ankle boots, these encourage the use of puttees, anklets, or gaiters to provide extra support and keep snow out. Or just fold your wool sock over the shaft for that old time skiing charm.

These usually come with a pair of laces, either leather or cloth. In any case, it might be wise to invest in a new pair as they are old and thus might be unreliable. Some meter-and-a-half should be OK. No insole included. Please get a pair.

Condition

Used Swedish military surplus and also tossed around in warehouses for decades, but still in good serviceable condition. Buy these and you definitely won’t get anything new. The eyelets can have green oxidation, and they can even come off because of this. You can of course install new ones there if you want or go au naturel. The leather parts would benefit from greasing and cleaning, because they might have stiffened with age. The shoelaces probably need replacing. And invest in new insoles because those are most likely missing. Even if they aren’t, they should only be sacrificed to the Gods of Chaos.

Most have spots of old talcum powder or grease, dead surface mold, or some other type of dirt, just rub it off with a rag. There's also that slightly exotic ol' warehouse smell, a real first-world problem. All these features just increase the rustic charm of these boots.