Help with shoes-lizard? snakeskin? date?

L

lapoubellevintage

Registered Guest
Good afternoon everyone! I'd love your input on these shoes. They're authentic skin but I'm not sure if they're snake or lizard. I'm also not exactly sure of the date. The brand is Viva Americana.

Thanks in advance for any help!!
 
They are snakeskin, and pretty sure they are Black snake, meaning the name of the snake as well as the color. But there are a lot of snakes with black in their names! Black racer snake, black adder, black rat snake, and more. Not sure which are the most used for shoes and bags, although at one point I think I had that information. It's gone now from my brain.
 
They are dyed python Anne. Black snake is too small a scale and too fragile. Python is the largest of the snakes (other than anaconda) and the skin puts up with a bit more scuffing than other snakes. The shoes are about 1963 - 65.
 
Jonathan, that is good to know--I have only had a black snake bag, and the scales were quite small. It makes sense that bigger scales would be used for shoes. Now, I do have a pair of grey snakeskin shoes--I wonder if they are python as well. I'm used to the patterned python, and didn't even know they dyed it solid black; shows you how little I know about snake....

So, are most snakeskin shoes python? Would they ever be made of anaconda?
 
Python is the usual snake material for shoemaking - I could see a purse being made of a different type of snake, because it doesn't get the same wear as shoes. Python's advantage is that it can be dyed to hide the patterning, if desired. Pythons are farmed in Southeast Asia but PETA has been up in arms because snake farming is seem as cruel, and because they estimated there was too much python on the market in relation to the declared exports of python skins that were being produced, leading them to speculate that pythons were being caught in the wild. Whether that is true or not I don't know, however, there is a problem with pythons naturalizing in the everglades -- from people letting their pet 'monty's' loose...

I know this because of something that happened a few years ago to me...http://kickshawproductions.com/blog/?p=98
 
Yes, the problems of pythons in Florida have been widely reported down here. Pretty scary, isn't it? And your experience is so crazy.... Why bother with shoes made of pythons that have been dead since long before they hit an endangered species list? And why not tell you it was too late to pay the 10 pounds? Well, of course we know the answer to that--they need revenue, so they'll get it any way they can, ethically or not. It's all insane.
 
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