17th Century Style Sporrans

[Guthrumironhead]

Greetings all. I just ordered a sporran from an Etsy shop that makes and sells historical leather goods and other items. It’s called West Historic Sales. I thought some of you might find these interesting, and they’re in my opinion quite good for the price. I have a shooting pouch made by them and it is very nice indeed. See pic below of the sporran I purchased and the historic example they based it on. Mine is of greater volume than the original, but follows the same design. They also have a version sized like the inspiration piece and a few others of similar type.

[Luke MacGillie]

I had a small bit to do with bringing these to market, and am glad to folks posting about them other than me!

[Guthrumironhead]

Thank you for any contribution you made Luke. I love this style of sporran. Maybe I’ll do a review when I have it in hand. I went looking for one of their hair-on goatskin knapsacks but bit on the sporran instead. Have you seen one of those knapsacks in person? The dimensions I read seem small, but I suppose it couldn’t be any bigger than the goat that got skinned to make it.

[Luke MacGillie]

Ive had both versions of the knapsacks. The Mk2 with the round bottom is much better and is what I use if/when I do enlisted. (Got Promoted back into the officer ranks last month after taking a couple decades off) It took a bit of back and forth, but I think showing that even a skinny 18th Century sized persons equipment taken from the 60th Regiments Packing list would not fit, the size was upped a couple inches in diameter and the round bottom added, that only shows on one Morier painting was made the standard.

[Guthrumironhead]

I received my sporran today. It is a quality piece of work. As expected materials and craftsmanship are excellent and the attention to detail is unbelievable. It is quite small, and barely holds my admittedly overstuffed wallet, car keys and a jack knife, but it’ll do the job nicely. I’ll just find a money clip to carry with this one and ditch the bulky wallet on those days. I am very happy with the sporran and will provide positive feedback to the shop as soon as Etsy lets me. I went ahead and ordered the larger knapsack and a hammer stall this afternoon, so I’m obviously liking these folks’ wares. I have no stake in the success or failure of the vendor so my opinions are my own.

[Luke MacGillie]

Pretty much all I carry in my sporran is a flint and steel kit, a copy of the knit purse from one of the bog men with a few coins, and the keys to my tea caddy and traveling liquor cabinet and a folding knife. Ive got 4 pockets in my upper body garments for all the the other things I carry.

[Tobus]

Pretty much all I carry in my sporran is a flint and steel kit, a copy of the knit purse from one of the bog men with a few coins, and the keys to my tea caddy and traveling liquor cabinet and a folding knife. Ive got 4 pockets in my upper body garments for all the the other things I carry.

I've no opinion on 17th century sporrans, but I just had to chime in and tip my hat to anyone who has a traveling liquor cabinet.

[OC Richard]

I do wonder what evidence there is for what sporrans in the 17th century looked like.

Museum artifacts have been shown to be next to worthless, because while they often have attached mythology, they almost never have air-tight provenance.

So we are left with iconography. There are loads of 18th century portraits but AFAIK very few 17th century ones.

I don't see any sporran here, unfortunately (1660)



This painting is said to date to 1700, close enough! Hard to tell exactly how the sporran is made. It does resemble the ones shown in the OP.

[The Q]

I do wonder what evidence there is for what sporrans in the 17th century looked like.

Museum artifacts have been shown to be next to worthless, because while they often have attached mythology, they almost never have air-tight provenance.

So we are left with iconography. There are loads of 18th century portraits but AFAIK very few 17th century ones.

I don't see any sporran here, unfortunately (1660)

From the admittedly small picture I'm looking at he appears to be wearing on his left hip, this is where a saxon clothed person would wear his scrip or purse prior to the invention of pockets.

[Luke MacGillie]

Here is Lord Duffus's Sporran.



As to what is on Sir Mungo's waistline...



But we can really see that drawstring quite well.