Shell Cordovan surface treatment

This Cigar Long is quite glossy and beautiful but it was really awful appearance a month ago...

Someday at the end of the year of 2017, I've suddenly got the advice request from my friend regarding his Cigar Long Wing.  He luckily purchased this shoe from Alden NY and kept unworn for a while but once he broke in, film-like substance started to peel off from the surface.  He was really shocked and tried to fix this problem but finally whole surface started to break up into tiny transparent pieces.

I didn't notice any kind of surface treatment applied at Horween factory but I asked Nick for his advice.  "Well, this is weird but I've never seen this...", he said.  My friend and I were all in trouble and almost thought nothing can solve this...  In the mean time, Nick sent another message...  "I talked to Mr. Tarlow and he requested to send that shoe back to the factory.  It seems it can be fixed very easily."

We have decided to send this shoe back to Alden NY for the repair.  According to Alden NY, it's gonna take around a week.  I wonder what the factory actually does...

Waiting for a month, it returned beautiful!  Broken film-like surface became really glossy!  It seems some kinds of treatment has been done on the surface and it's really glossy even on creased areas.

What they applied at the factory?  I saw raw cordovan became glossy just after polishing process at Horween factory but I didn't know Alden applies some treatment on the shell...  According to Nick, it seems the factory applies some finish and wax at the end of the shoe-making process and probably they have done refinish on the whole shoe.

That's awesome beauty!  My friend is really happy with this result! :-)