Last week the board went to a maker whose own website was a state behind the company. This week the website is the most consistent thing about the shoe. Aurora ran as a pick back in Issue 6 on August 4. It gets the full profile now because of what a catalogue count turned up.

Every one of the twenty nine shoe listings on aurorashoeco.com opens with the same five words: "Handmade in upstate New York." Not on the About page, not in a banner. It is the first line of the product description on all twenty nine, and it is a link that points back to the shop.

For breadth of coverage that beats every catalogue this newsletter has counted: Hertling was 61 of 92, Quoddy 126 of 370. But those two counts and this one are not the same measurement, and it matters. Hertling's 61 was a count of trousers naming the country the cloth was woven in. Aurora's 29 is a count of shoes naming where the shoe was assembled, which is the easier claim. Aurora names no leather origin anywhere in the catalogue: the words are "full grain leather" and no tannery, hide or country follows them. So read this as wide and shallow rather than as better than Hertling. The question we put to Whalerknits about their yarn is open here about their hide, and if anyone knows the answer, reply.

The range is small enough to hold in your head. Five shoes, mostly in five colours: the New Mexican sandal at $186, the Mary Jane and the T-Strap at $198, the Middle English monk flat at $238, and the North Pacific at $260. The New Mexican, Mary Jane and T-Strap are cut in US women's 5 to 11. The Middle English is the one that comes both ways, US men's 6.5 to 12 and US women's 5 to 11, and the North Pacific comes both ways too. Full grain leather upper, leather insole, and a description that tells you the shoe will stretch and mould to your foot rather than pretending it fits perfectly out of the box.

The detail worth the subscription is at the bottom of every size dropdown. After the last half size there is an option that reads "Submit a Tracing." The page says, in their words: "If you are unsure of your size, why guess? Send us a tracing for a perfect fit." They will build to the outline of your actual foot as a standard menu option, and the tracing variants are priced the same as the stock sizes, $238 on the Middle English, so it carries no upcharge on the page.

Buy first: the Men's Middle English in Brown, $238, full and half sizes 6.5 to 12, in C (narrow) and D (standard). Checked this morning: every size and width of every colourway on the site shows as available, which is unusual enough that it is worth saying plainly rather than dressing up as scarcity.

One thing to get right before you order. The width letters do not mean the same thing on every model, in the menu you actually order from. On the Middle English the dropdown reads "C (narrow)" and "D (standard)". On the New Mexican, the Mary Jane and the T-Strap the same two letters read "C (standard)" and "D (wide)". The prose lower down both pages is identical and says C is narrow to medium and D is medium to wide, so this looks like the dropdown labels disagreeing with each other rather than the shoes differing. Read the dropdown on the page you are on, and if it matters, send the tracing.

Five this week, each checked on the rendered product page rather than in the product data. The fifth is in here only because that distinction turned out to matter.

🇺🇸 Flannel Workshirt in Canyon, Bradley Mountain. $235. The spec block says "Made in USA" and then, separately, "Made in Nashville". All six sizes from XS to XXL were live this morning. The fabric's own origin is not stated, so this is a sewing claim with a city attached, not a full chain.

🇺🇸 Slack Jacket in Navy Canvas, Shockoe Atelier, Richmond, Virginia. $425. The strongest single sentence in this issue's picks: "Rinsed 10 oz. Navy Duck Canvas / 100% Organic Cotton / Woven in USA, sewn in Richmond, VA." Cloth country and sewing city on one line, which is the thing Issue 6 and Issue 8 were both about. Only XS is left, one of six sizes, so for most readers this is a note about how to write a spec rather than a jacket to buy.

US-made line: Heritage Wool Ballcap, Duckworth. $52. The page reads "Made in the USA: Crafted in collaboration with Sandlot Goods." Natural, Military Green and Standard Gray were all live. Flagged as a line rather than fully, because the same catalogue carries a Classic Snap Ballcap whose own page says "made in Bangladesh." Duckworth tells you which is which on the product page, which is the behaviour we keep asking for.

🇺🇸 622 Midweight Athletic Sock, Wigwam, Cedarburg, Wisconsin. $21. "A Wigwam classic, made in the USA." Knit from acrylic and stretch nylon, so buy it for the sock and not for the fibre. White in M, L and XL and Black in M and L were live this morning; Black XL was the one variant showing out.

🇺🇸 The Vermonter, Vermont Glove, Randolph, Vermont. $115. Their FEATURES tab reads "100% Goat Leather / Made In Vermont / Hand Sewn / Made in Net Zero Factory," and further down the page, "HAND-SEWN IN VERMONT." All 24 combinations were live this morning, XS to XXL in both standard and short finger lengths, and two pairs take $20 off. Worth saying how close this one came to being cut: that origin line lives in a tab rather than in the product description, so a scan of the product data alone returns nothing, and the first draft of this issue was going to print that Vermont Glove says nothing about where its gloves are made. It says so on every page. Opening the page is the job.

Friday's Shop is the Labor Day discount that never shows on the page, including the one that only appeared in the cart.

A 1913 factory whose entire catalogue reads sold out, and nobody has said anything. L.C. King in Bristol, Tennessee, the Pointer Brand people, has been on the banked list here for a month. This morning all 61 products on lcking.com show zero purchasable variants. Not the chore coats, all 61, including a $0 "Signature required" service item. The site itself is up and renders normally. What can be observed alongside that: nothing has been published to the catalogue since July 2024, the newest product was created in April 2024, their Instagram's most recent post is dated August 7, 2024, the homepage still reads "110 Years of Quality Sewing & Craftsmanship" against a 1913 founding, which was 2023, and the factory store footer says "Closed for the Summer, Be back in the Fall." What cannot be observed: any statement, from them or from anyone else, about what is going on. Two searches this morning turned up no dated outside source either way. So it is printed here as five dated observations and no conclusion. If you are in the Tri-Cities and you walk past 24 7th St., we would genuinely like to know what the door says.

A "made in America" line that also appears on a page for a product that does not exist. Leather Man Ltd of Essex, Connecticut now trades as Eliza B. & Leather Man Ltd: leathermanltd.com redirects to elizab.com, and we did not establish when that started, so treat it as the current state and not as news. The belts are live and for sale. Their site carries the sentence "And, yes they are made in America." It reads as a product claim. It is not. We fetched seven of their product pages and that sentence appeared on all seven, including one that returned a 404, which is how you can tell it is site furniture rather than anything attached to a particular belt. The individual product pages, including the Tab & Buckle Surcingle Belt at $46, carry an empty Product Details block and no origin sentence of their own. This is not an accusation that anything is made elsewhere. A claim about a company and a claim about the thing in your cart are different objects, and only one of them is checkable. Issue 7 quoted that same sentence approvingly in August, so this is us marking our own homework.

Every item above was verified for country of origin this week, September 8, 2026. The whole board is public and searchable at registry.quarterboard.co, every maker labeled and dated. No brand paid to appear. Some links may become affiliate links; that never changes what gets picked.

P.S. If you own a pair of Aurora's, reply and tell me whether you sent a tracing and whether it was worth it. And if you know what is happening in Bristol, that is the reply I want most this week.