Pigskin or jico leather mat

@lewm sorry to misquote you 😢

I have pondered just making one 

No problemo.

I have pondered just making one 

The job of the mat is to control vinyl resonance while the cartridge is tracking the groove, thus preventing the vinyl from talking back to the cartridge. This results in measurably and audibly superior performance.

To do this, the platter pad has to have the same durometer as the vinyl itself.

To know if the pad is doing its job, turn down the volume all the way. Play an LP and listen to the sound emanating from the cartridge itself. If you can hear it from more than a foot away the platter pad is falling short of its goal.

To do this, the platter pad has to have the same durometer as the vinyl itself.

Just not true. This again is where intuitive/rational/objective/measurement based talk diverges from something called "listening". A platter pad with the same durometer as vinyl (is there such a thing as "the vinyl"?) may sound best with one turntable/arm/cartridge combination while a copper, cf, or bare aluminum (as Harry Weisfeld advocated for years with his turntables) may sound best with others. I prefer the sound of no platter mat with my two decks. 

Go with the leather is my advice. If nothing else, it looks sexy. 

@lohanimal 

Halcro uses the pigskin mat in conjunction with the Victor Glass mat.

The Jico pigskin was a limited run some years ago.

The key is the thickness - the Victor and Jico are much thinner than most leather mats.

Best place to find the Vitor mat is on Yahoo Japan - they usually sell for around $50USD and come up from time to time. Topclassaudio has an original  Victor Glass mat and pigskin leather mat set for sale currently.