To be clear I have spent some serious cash on work boots before, but they all fail in about the same amount of time no matter the brand name. Oh you might get a few more months out of the more expensive ones but not much. I just have not spent 500 dollars on boots before. The difference is these are welded, hand stitched and can be re-soled.
These boots cost 350 from redwing but they are all sold out in my size for the boot I wanted locally and on their website. I had to spend 380 on amazon and it turned out they came from Great Britain. I have prime so I am guessing the extra money was built into the shipping.
Plus, they do not come with insoles which was another 85 bucks. But I had gone to the Red Wing store and did the whole fitting thing and bought the insoles there. Which is where I found out the heritage boots are pretty much all sold out and the red wing stores can't even start ordering them again until spring.