This one was new to me - I ran across it in yesterday's newspaper, in an article discussion a craft council show I'm going to attend this weekend. If you trust the US media to get etymology right (), then here it is, most of the context preserved:

"They are not cobblers, although they don't balk at that description. Cobblers repair shoes and, in times past, would even reuse leather from worn shoes to make a smaller pair of 'new' shoes, [the artist] said. A cordwainer, by contrast, is someone who works with new leather. Now virtually obsolete, the term derived from cordovan, a fine-grained leather originally made in Cordova, Spain."

Maybe the etymology doesn't qualify as particularly unusual, but I found it an interesting word that might be worth some discussion!