New Balance builds the 991v2 in Flimby, tells you so on the box, and charges accordingly. The “Poseidon” takes that shoe and finishes it to look like it already spent a season in somebody’s rotation. The heel clip is tinted the yellow that clear TPU turns after a few years, the midsole is cream rather than white, and the laces come pre-dulled. It is a Made in UK release dressed as a secondhand one, and that tension is the most interesting thing about the pair.
The 991 arrived in 2001 as the flagship of the English factory, a shoe that existed to prove New Balance could build something in Cumbria worth importing at a premium. It stayed almost untouched for two decades, which is unusual for a running model and part of why it built the following it has. The 991v2 followed in 2023, and it was a real revision rather than a colorway refresh. New Balance kept the outline and changed what was underneath, moving to a full-length FuelCell midsole with ENCAP construction around it, and adding semi-translucent ABZORB SBS pods. The upper stayed in the register the model was known for, pigskin suede with mesh panels and synthetic overlays, with reflective detailing worked in. Two versions in twenty-five years is a slow release schedule by any measure, and New Balance has traded on that restraint ever since. The Flimby plant is carrying most of the weight here. It is the factory the entire Made in UK line is built around, and New Balance has spent years making sure buyers understand the difference between a shoe assembled in Cumbria and one that merely shares a model number. That is why the 991 and the 991v2 can sit above the American-made models on price without much argument from the people buying them, and why stockists list the pigskin suede and the factory in the same breath as the cushioning.
“Poseidon” is New Balance’s name for the mid blue in the middle of the colorway, which the brand lists as Bluesteel with Poseidon and Harbor Mist. Suede in a dusty, chalky blue covers the overlays over a lighter mesh base, and the whole thing is deliberately knocked back rather than saturated. The aging treatment is where the design spends its attention. Beige runs through the midsole and the laces, the TPU heel clip carries an oxidized yellow cast, and a red 991 stitch at the heel gives the only real jolt of contrast on the shoe. It arrives as part of a Vintage Sports group, and New Balance’s own Vintage Sports listing carries a Potters Clay pair in U991SS2 alongside it, though the aggregators describe the partner colorway as “Karanda Red.” That one is unresolved.
The read here is that pre-aging has gone from a novelty to a finishing option, and it sits strangely on this particular shoe. Yellowed midsoles used to be a defect that tanked resale value. Now they are a design decision, and New Balance is applying one to the model whose entire pitch is that it was made carefully, in England, out of good materials, and will last. You can argue that is honest, since a 991 does eventually look like this. You can also argue the brand is charging a premium for provenance and then simulating the wear that provenance is supposed to survive. Either way it is a more considered colorway than the seasonal grey the Made in UK line usually leans on, and the oxidized clip is the detail people will either love or refuse outright.
On price, New Balance lists the Made in UK 991v2 at $269.99 in the United States and UK stockists have the Poseidon at £209.95. JustFreshKicks has published $270 for this pair specifically, and no New Balance product page for U991WS2 is live yet to settle it, so treat the US figure as reported rather than confirmed. Where that lands it: the Made in USA 990v6 and 993 both list at $199.99 and the 990v4 at $184.99, so the English shoe asks roughly seventy dollars more than its American cousins. What that buys is the Flimby build and the FuelCell and ABZORB SBS combination the 993 and 990v4 do not carry.
The New Balance 991v2 “Poseidon” is set for Fall and Winter 2026 in the style code U991WS2, with no specific day announced yet. Expect it at newbalance.com and at the usual Made in UK stockists, with UK availability already listed through Urban Industry at £209.95. For more on the silhouette, our write-up on the 991v2 Made in UK “Sea Grass” covers the platform in detail, and the American side is in our pieces on the 990v4 “Monarch Burgundy” and the 993 Made in USA “Morel”.
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