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Harlan's Handmade Bolo Ties

Harlan's Handmade Bolo Ties

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Harlan Renfro
Die-struck by Harlan Renfro — Flatonia, Texas
★★★★★ 4.8 (359)
Harlan's Handmade Bolo Ties

Harlan's Handmade Bolo Ties

$30.00
$30.00 $70.00
SAVE $40 Sold out
Harlan Renfro — Die-Struck Bolo Ties · Product Information

Struck by Hand in Flatonia, Texas

Harlan Renfro, 68. His grandfather cut steel dies for harness makers in this town in 1913, his father struck the first of these on a Thursday afternoon in 1971, and Harlan has been at the same press since 1980. There are three people left in the building and nine presses standing under sheets. For readers of the article, 2,000 have been set aside at $35 instead of $70 — after that it costs what it has always cost.

“A man came in to buy a shirt for his brother’s funeral and my father measured him at eighteen and a half, and the collar would not close. He said he’d sit it out at the house. My father went in the back, put one of his own father’s harness dies under the press and struck him a sun out of brass, braided a cord for it, set a spring on the back. Took him the afternoon. The man went and buried his brother in a collared shirt. He came back the following year and ordered four more.”

— Harlan Renfro · Renfro & Son, Flatonia, Texas

What You Receive

Everything That Ships With Your Tie

1

The Tie

One die-struck sun on braided leather, spring set and checked by Harlan before it goes in the box. Ready to wear the day it arrives.

2

Your Finish

Antique brass on brown leather, or antique silver on black. Two, and there have never been more than two.

3

39 Inches of Cord

Four-strand round braid, cut from hide out of Yoakum, thirty miles down the road. Weighted tips swaged on solid.

4

Sherri’s Card

Six lines in the lid of the box telling you how to wear it. Same six lines his daughter has been writing since she was eleven.

Why This One

Six Things You Won’t Find on a $12 Copy

Every detail below came out of a hundred years of striking metal in one room, and knowing exactly where the cheap version gives up first.

The Metal

Struck, Not Cast

A cast piece is poured into a mould. The metal runs where it wants and the pattern comes out soft and rounded — fine in a photograph, dead in the hand. Struck means the metal is driven sideways into the die under pressure, one hit at a time, and the pattern comes out with a corner on it. Run a thumbnail across ours. It catches.

The Spring

It Stays Where You Put It

The one thing that ruins a bolo tie is a slide that creeps down your chest by eleven in the morning, and it is always the same fault: a bent wire on the back instead of a proper plate. Harlan sets a spring plate on every single one by hand. Hold the tie up by the slide and let it hang. Ours does not travel.

The Cord

Braided Leather, and the Braid Has a Job

The texture of a four-strand braid is what gives the spring something to grip. Smooth cord slips, and cheap synthetic cord kinks, goes soft and stays bent where it was folded in the packet. This is leather, and it holds its shape from the first day to the last.

The Size

30 mm, and That Is On Purpose

“A man’s tie is not supposed to be the first thing you see about him,” Harlan says. Everything else on the shelves now has a steer skull on it, or a stone the size of a thumb, or rhinestones. Three of those patterns went through this shop and all three are gone. The plain sun is the one that stayed.

The Fit

There Is No Neck Size

There never has been. It does not care what your collar has been doing for the last ten years, and it does not ask you to close a top button that stopped closing years ago. It also means you can buy one for a man without finding out his size first, which is the reason most of these leave the shop in a box.

The Tips

Weighted, So They Hang Straight

Light tips swing about and end up sitting at odd angles across your shirt. These are solid and swaged on, so they hang plumb and stop where they should — at the second or third button. Small thing. It is the difference between looking dressed and looking like you tried something on.

Craft Note

“You can tell struck work from cast before you have looked at anything else. Put your thumbnail across the pattern — struck has an edge on it because the metal was displaced, not poured, and a cast piece feels like a bar of soap by comparison. Then turn it over. A plated piece will show you where the plating stops, usually a slightly different colour around the shank, and that is the spot that goes green on a shirt collar in a couple of summers. Solid metal has nowhere to wear through to. It just goes darker in the low parts of the pattern, which is what you want anyway.”

Merle Bassett — Tool-and-die maker, 41 years · Bench-trained, Central Texas

Where It Goes

For Any Man Who Has To Dress, Not Just Cowboys

The men who own these are accountants, machinists, pastors, bus drivers, a dentist in Ohio and a retired airline pilot in Florida. What they have in common is that they got tired of choosing between a necktie and nothing at all.

Sunday Service Weddings Funerals & Memorials Courthouse & Civic Banquets & Awards Nights Under a Jacket, Any Day Western Formal A Gift For a Hard Man To Buy For

Quality Promise

Five Things You Get With Every Tie

✓
Harlan’s Hands On Every Single One He sets the blank, pulls the press, sets the spring tension and checks each finished tie before it is boxed. Three people work in that building and none of them is on an assembly line.
✓
Struck Under Dies Cut By Hand in 1913 Emmett Renfro cut them for harness makers before the automobile ended that trade. The pattern has been struck from the same steel ever since and has never been redrawn — which is why a tie from 1974 and one from this week are the same object.
✓
Solid Metal — No Plating To Rub Through Solid brass with an antique finish, or German silver on the black. There is no bright plate sitting on a cheap core waiting to wear off at the edges and mark a shirt collar. It darkens in the low parts of the pattern instead, which is the part people end up liking.
✓
39 Inches of Braided Leather Cord Cut from hide out of Yoakum, thirty miles down the road, and braided four-strand round. The braid is not decoration — it is the friction the spring holds on to. Look-alikes have turned up on the big marketplaces on synthetic cord that kinks in the packet.
✓
2,000 At the Reader Price, Then Back To $70 Nothing is closing and there is no countdown clock. Renfro & Son set 2,000 aside at $35 because the article asked what would actually help. When those are gone the price is $70 again, the same as it was before anybody wrote about them.

90-Day Money-Back Guarantee

Wear it about. If it isn’t what you thought when it arrives — the weight, the finish, the size, anything at all — put it back in the post within 90 days for a full refund. No questions and no forms. “I only want these with people who are actually going to wear them,” Harlan says. “If it’s wrong for you, send it back and I’ll find it somebody else.”

A Note From the Workshop

No two strikes come out identical. The press is ninety-five years old, the dies are older, and the antique finish is worked in by hand afterwards — so the depth of the shadow in the rays and the exact tone of the brass move slightly from one to the next. That is not a fault. It is what a hundred-year-old die looks like when a person stands at a press and pulls it, one at a time. The same goes for the leather: hide is not uniform, and the brown cord runs a little lighter or darker depending on where in the skin it was cut. Sherri and Lorene pack every order themselves at the same bench, which is why it occasionally takes a day longer than it should.

The Details

Product Specifications

Slide Die-struck sunburst, 1.2″ / 30 mm across. Solid brass with an antique finish, or German silver — no plating over a base metal
Dies Cut by hand by Emmett Renfro in 1913 for harness work. The pattern has never been redrawn
Cord 39″ / 100 cm of braided leather, four-strand round braid — sits as a 19.7″ loop when worn. Hide out of Yoakum, Texas
Tips 1.3″ / 33 mm, solid and weighted, swaged on — they hang plumb instead of swinging
Finishes Antique brass on brown cord
Antique silver on black cord
Mechanism Hand-set spring plate on the reverse. Slides where you push it, stops where you leave it
Fit No neck size, and there never has been. Fits any collar, and fits a man you are buying for without asking him
How To Wear It Collar buttoned. Slide pushed up under the chin, not down on the chest. Tips to the second or third button. The more formal the occasion, the higher you wear it
Marking The die number struck into the reverse of the slide. Look-alikes have appeared on the big marketplaces and are hard to tell apart in a listing photograph — the number is how you know
Care Wipe the metal with a dry cloth; leave the antique finish alone, polish takes it off. A little leather conditioner on the cord once a year is plenty. Do not machine wash
Use Church · Weddings · Funerals · Courthouse · Banquets · Under a jacket, any day · Gifting
Boxed Ships in a box with Sherri Renfro’s card in the lid — six lines on how to wear it
Maker Harlan Renfro — Renfro & Son, 118 Peach Street, Flatonia, Texas. Third generation; at the press since 1980
Reader Price $35 per tie, either finish — 2,000 set aside, then back to $70
Shipping Ships from Flatonia, Texas · free US shipping · 3–5 business days
Sold By Craft Folk — the only place Renfro’s ties are sold
Guarantee 90-day full refund, no questions asked
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The Final Sale

Message from the Artist:

After years of making things by hand, our workshop is closing. These are the last pieces we'll ever ship. Every item on this page was made slowly, carefully, and with more love than any factory could replicate. Nothing rushed. Nothing outsourced. Just real craft from real hands.

We're proud of every single one. We hope they find good homes.

When they're gone, they're gone — and so are we.

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Shipping with UPS / USPS

Free shipping across the United States

- Delivery time: 7–14 business days
- Insured: Every package is fully insured

🌳 Carbon-neutral shipping with UPS / USPS

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800+ Happy Customers

Excellent 4.9

What Harlan's customers are saying

Honestly I nearly did not order because I did not want to walk into a room looking like I was in a country band. What sold me was the size, it is small and plain enough that it reads as a piece of jewellery instead of a costume, and the card that came with it says to wear it high under a buttoned collar rather than hanging down your chest, which turns out to be the whole difference. I have worn it with a denim shirt on weekends and under a jacket for a work dinner and it did not look out of place either time. Two months in and there is no green on my collar and no wear on the finish, which was my other worry at this price.

Verified

Andy Prewitt, Fort Collins, Colorado

Ran my thumbnail over the pattern like the article said and it does catch, so that part is not made up. Then I hung it off one finger and pushed the slide up and down about twenty times and it stayed put every time, which is more than I can say for the one I have in a drawer that will not stay above my second button past ten in the morning. The brass is darker in person than the photos, more of a worn penny colour than a bright gold, and I like it better that way. Only note is the cord had a bend in it from the packaging that took two days of wearing to settle out.

Verified

Curt Vandeveer, Grand Rapids, Michigan

Wore it to a church supper the week it came and three people asked me about it before I got to the food table. I will say it looked smaller in the box than I pictured, and I had a moment where I thought I had ordered wrong, but on a shirt collar it sits right and I would not want it bigger. My top button has not closed properly in about six years, so a regular tie has been out of the question for a while. Shipping took eight days which was longer than the site said, though nobody called to complain about it either.

Verified

Dale Hensarling, Springfield, Missouri

Ordered the brass for myself and the silver for my son in law and my wife made me open both at the table so she could see. Build quality is the same on both, the metal has some heft to it and the leather is real leather, not that plastic cord that goes stiff and shiny after a summer. It arrived in a plain box with a card explaining how to wear the thing, which sounds like a small item but my son in law had never owned one and that card is the reason he actually put it on instead of leaving it in a drawer. No neck size to worry about either, which is why I could buy one for a man I have never once seen shop for himself.

Verified

Wendell Craddock, Bowling Green, Kentucky

Honestly I nearly did not order because I did not want to walk into a room looking like I was in a country band. What sold me was the size, it is small and plain enough that it reads as a piece of jewellery instead of a costume, and the card that came with it says to wear it high under a buttoned collar rather than hanging down your chest, which turns out to be the whole difference. I have worn it with a denim shirt on weekends and under a jacket for a work dinner and it did not look out of place either time. Two months in and there is no green on my collar and no wear on the finish, which was my other worry at this price.

Verified

Andy Prewitt, Fort Collins, Colorado

Ran my thumbnail over the pattern like the article said and it does catch, so that part is not made up. Then I hung it off one finger and pushed the slide up and down about twenty times and it stayed put every time, which is more than I can say for the one I have in a drawer that will not stay above my second button past ten in the morning. The brass is darker in person than the photos, more of a worn penny colour than a bright gold, and I like it better that way. Only note is the cord had a bend in it from the packaging that took two days of wearing to settle out.

Verified

Curt Vandeveer, Grand Rapids, Michigan

Wore it to a church supper the week it came and three people asked me about it before I got to the food table. I will say it looked smaller in the box than I pictured, and I had a moment where I thought I had ordered wrong, but on a shirt collar it sits right and I would not want it bigger. My top button has not closed properly in about six years, so a regular tie has been out of the question for a while. Shipping took eight days which was longer than the site said, though nobody called to complain about it either.

Verified

Dale Hensarling, Springfield, Missouri

Ordered the brass for myself and the silver for my son in law and my wife made me open both at the table so she could see. Build quality is the same on both, the metal has some heft to it and the leather is real leather, not that plastic cord that goes stiff and shiny after a summer. It arrived in a plain box with a card explaining how to wear the thing, which sounds like a small item but my son in law had never owned one and that card is the reason he actually put it on instead of leaving it in a drawer. No neck size to worry about either, which is why I could buy one for a man I have never once seen shop for himself.

Verified

Wendell Craddock, Bowling Green, Kentucky

Honestly I nearly did not order because I did not want to walk into a room looking like I was in a country band. What sold me was the size, it is small and plain enough that it reads as a piece of jewellery instead of a costume, and the card that came with it says to wear it high under a buttoned collar rather than hanging down your chest, which turns out to be the whole difference. I have worn it with a denim shirt on weekends and under a jacket for a work dinner and it did not look out of place either time. Two months in and there is no green on my collar and no wear on the finish, which was my other worry at this price.

Verified

Andy Prewitt, Fort Collins, Colorado

Ran my thumbnail over the pattern like the article said and it does catch, so that part is not made up. Then I hung it off one finger and pushed the slide up and down about twenty times and it stayed put every time, which is more than I can say for the one I have in a drawer that will not stay above my second button past ten in the morning. The brass is darker in person than the photos, more of a worn penny colour than a bright gold, and I like it better that way. Only note is the cord had a bend in it from the packaging that took two days of wearing to settle out.

Verified

Curt Vandeveer, Grand Rapids, Michigan

Wore it to a church supper the week it came and three people asked me about it before I got to the food table. I will say it looked smaller in the box than I pictured, and I had a moment where I thought I had ordered wrong, but on a shirt collar it sits right and I would not want it bigger. My top button has not closed properly in about six years, so a regular tie has been out of the question for a while. Shipping took eight days which was longer than the site said, though nobody called to complain about it either.

Verified

Dale Hensarling, Springfield, Missouri

Ordered the brass for myself and the silver for my son in law and my wife made me open both at the table so she could see. Build quality is the same on both, the metal has some heft to it and the leather is real leather, not that plastic cord that goes stiff and shiny after a summer. It arrived in a plain box with a card explaining how to wear the thing, which sounds like a small item but my son in law had never owned one and that card is the reason he actually put it on instead of leaving it in a drawer. No neck size to worry about either, which is why I could buy one for a man I have never once seen shop for himself.

Verified

Wendell Craddock, Bowling Green, Kentucky

Honestly I nearly did not order because I did not want to walk into a room looking like I was in a country band. What sold me was the size, it is small and plain enough that it reads as a piece of jewellery instead of a costume, and the card that came with it says to wear it high under a buttoned collar rather than hanging down your chest, which turns out to be the whole difference. I have worn it with a denim shirt on weekends and under a jacket for a work dinner and it did not look out of place either time. Two months in and there is no green on my collar and no wear on the finish, which was my other worry at this price.

Verified

Andy Prewitt, Fort Collins, Colorado

Ran my thumbnail over the pattern like the article said and it does catch, so that part is not made up. Then I hung it off one finger and pushed the slide up and down about twenty times and it stayed put every time, which is more than I can say for the one I have in a drawer that will not stay above my second button past ten in the morning. The brass is darker in person than the photos, more of a worn penny colour than a bright gold, and I like it better that way. Only note is the cord had a bend in it from the packaging that took two days of wearing to settle out.

Verified

Curt Vandeveer, Grand Rapids, Michigan

Wore it to a church supper the week it came and three people asked me about it before I got to the food table. I will say it looked smaller in the box than I pictured, and I had a moment where I thought I had ordered wrong, but on a shirt collar it sits right and I would not want it bigger. My top button has not closed properly in about six years, so a regular tie has been out of the question for a while. Shipping took eight days which was longer than the site said, though nobody called to complain about it either.

Verified

Dale Hensarling, Springfield, Missouri

Ordered the brass for myself and the silver for my son in law and my wife made me open both at the table so she could see. Build quality is the same on both, the metal has some heft to it and the leather is real leather, not that plastic cord that goes stiff and shiny after a summer. It arrived in a plain box with a card explaining how to wear the thing, which sounds like a small item but my son in law had never owned one and that card is the reason he actually put it on instead of leaving it in a drawer. No neck size to worry about either, which is why I could buy one for a man I have never once seen shop for himself.

Verified

Wendell Craddock, Bowling Green, Kentucky

Freqquently Asked Questions

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Got a question? Here's how to reach us.

My wife and I personally respond to every single email — as fast as we possibly can. Whether you have a question about your order or just want to talk craft, we're here.

You can reach us:

  • Mon – Fri: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM (CT)
  • Saturday: 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM (CT)

Email: info@craftfolk.com

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Of course. We stand behind everything on CraftFolk 100%. If you're not happy, neither are we. Just shoot us an email within 90 days and we'll make it right — no hassle, no headaches.

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Every single product on CraftFolk is 100% handmade — crafted by hand, using only premium quality materials. We're proud to carry on a tradition of craftsmanship that has been passed down through generations.

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