I recently bought a pair of bar and buckle patent leather ghillie brogues in yet another eBay auction selling not what was purported. They arrived today and are very disappointing. The finishing is poorly done with frayed leather and loose threads, the straps are permanently malformed from being buckled, both sets of buckles are grimy and need cleaning, and the leather lining on the inner soles is already coming loose. But the worst is that they are at least a size smaller than they are labelled, both on the box and inside the shoe itself, and therefore unwearable. However, on the box they are labelled Nicoll Brothers "Kilties." The inner sole lining is also labelled "Kilties" with Gaelic under it and a standing piper logo above it.

I have read here that Nicoll Brothers make fairly good sporrans, so was surprised that these brogues of such poor quality would be sold under their name. I googled for them and found that "nicoll-brothers.com expired on 11/19/2006 and is pending renewal or deletion."

Is Nicoll Brothers no more? Is this another case of a well-known name being bought by unscrupulous people who use it to sell shoddy merchandise?