The correction on the board is the honest part

LANDED THIS MORNING, chalked across the top. Beneath it a price list, kilogram by kilogram, one line struck through and rewritten in blue.

The price went up between morning and afternoon, and the board doesn't hide it. It just shows the correction in a different hand.

Why is the price written in chalk instead of print?

Because the number is only true for today.

Kelpfin at 8.40 a kilogram, Rockwhisper cod at 10.50 — these aren't decisions the shop made in advance. They're what the boats could get out to overnight and what came back in the hold, and that changes with the weather. Slate is the one material built to carry a fact that expires by closing time.

Why does the correction stay visible instead of being wiped clean?

Because wiping it would make the board a lie about how prices actually move.

Deepwater mullet is struck through at 6.30 and rewritten at 6.80, in blue rather than the original white — up, not down, and shown as a change rather than quietly replaced. A fresh number with no history looks certain. A crossed-out one is what actually happened to the price that day, and that's the same instinct behind a tailor's card keeping its old figures struck through rather than erased.

What decides which fish get listed at all?

Only what's actually in the case that morning.

Vellamar snapper, driftmouth and silvergill sit on the board because the boats landed them, not because the shop stocks them as a matter of course. A slate board with six fish on it is a snapshot of one morning's catch, not a menu — leave the shelf empty of monkfish and monkfish doesn't appear, however often it usually does.

Can I put a real market's board or a real supplier's prices on this?

The fish names here are invented on purpose, and that's worth being plain about.

Species names belong to nobody — a snapper is a snapper wherever it's sold. What is somebody's property is a particular shop's actual board: its name, its hand, its layout, its real prices on a real morning. That's licensable if a real stall is the point of the shirt; invented, the board is free to be exactly this specific without asking anyone.

Does the idea work for other trades with a board?

Anywhere the stock changes daily and the price has to keep up.

A butcher's cut list, a greengrocer's board, a market stall's chalked total all run on the same logic — a number that's honestly good for one day only. It also makes a fair gift for someone who runs a stall themselves: their own board, their own morning, redrawn.

Isn't a printed price board out of date the moment it's made?

That's not a flaw in this design — it's the whole point of it.

This isn't meant to be a current price list. It's a record of one specific morning, the way a scoreline from an actual match means something a generic scoreboard doesn't. The correction is what proves it was real.

Does it print well?

Yes — chalk-on-slate is naturally flat and high-contrast, which fabric likes.

Chalk white on a washed charcoal ground carries the whole board; the one line of blue for the correction is the only place a second colour needs to do any work. Keep the fish sketch in the margin simple — a soft, shaded drawing goes muddy on fabric where a few flat lines survive.

How do I get one made?

Describe the board at JustOG — which fish, which prices, and which line gets corrected. Pick a direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and it's made to order and shipped.

Designs other people have published are in the shop.

By tomorrow morning the board will be wrong again, in a good way.