Vintage collection on Ebay

[OC Richard]

Amazing collection of vintage silver accoutrements: sporran, brooch, buckles, buttons, sgian, dirk.

I wonder where the date "1873" was arrived at. The hallmarks evidently don't give the date?


https://www.ebay.com/itm/Authentic-1...p2056016.l4276


I've looked through hundreds of Victorian photos of men in Highland Dress and the impression one gets is that small modern sporrans like that didn't appear until the early 20th century. They seem to first appear as deerskin Day Dress sporrans, and are more or less updated reproductions of 18th century sporrans. In Evening Dress the long hair sporrans held on a bit longer.

So seeing a white Evening sporran with the 18th century style cantle from 1873 seems to be an outlier (if the date is correct). If I was given photos of that sporran and asked for a date, without a datable hallmark or other provenance, I would put that sporran at c1920.

The fact that they call it a "sputton" and a "broach" makes me question how much they know.