Thank you. I

I like the first pair of Bally. From the stitches, I would say it is goodyear welted. (solid construction under the general consensus). But they are not oxford. The technical term for these is perforated captoe (or punched captoe) blucher(englishs call it derby) as the vamps are open. Oxford (americans call it balmoral) is style with closed vamp.

Here is an example of blucher/derby: (opened vamps)


And here is an example of oxford/balmoral (closed vamp)


The second pair of Bally is blake stitched. And generally blake construction is not as sturdy as goodyear welt.

A good pair of shoes can last one's lifetime given it a proper care. But soles will be worn out sooner or later with no exceptions unless you don't wear them. With goodyear welt construction method(and there are other construction methods are even superior and more costly than goodyear welt), soles can be replaced by any skilled cobbler or you can send them to the original factory and they will do for a fee.

Shoes from most big brands are either blake or even cemented (top meets bottom with a layer of glue). After a couple of years wear, you basically have to throw them away. Besides the cheap and shitty constructions they employ, leathers are inferior as well. I have seen a lot of big brand name shoes are made of corrected grain.

In the past, my shoe collections were all big brand names like Bally, Ferragamo, Tods, Bruno Magli, and etc. During the last 2-3 years, I have leant a lot from shoe experts and have become much more edcuated. (to tell you the truth, before that I couldn't tell calf from corrected grain, and didn't even know such a thing called corrected grain, didn't kown what shoe lasts were - how ignorant I was). I might have spent more since then but have got much better values. I couldn't be happier.