Semi-Dress or Daywear?

[McMurdo]

But more seriously...

The various items that are looking for new homes, are things that have come my way over a period of time, and have formed a kind of unintentional collection. A fair portion are run-of-the-mill, but some might have more appeal - for example, I have two unused all-leather sporrans with raised panel-work of the sort seen in the catalogues OC Richard has posted in the past.

Does anyone know what is the official position in North America now, regarding the import of seal fur? A number of the sporrans have seal fur fronts, but are 'vintage' items and so may fall outside the restrictions.

Putting a value on them is also tricky, so advice and suggestions would be welcome.

There is no issue with seal in Canada, in the US you are under the Marine Mammal Protection Act
https://www.fws.gov/international/la...ction-act.html

[Troglodyte]

Canadians may have a free hand then...

The US Fish & Wildlife website is pretty informative, and this section may give the answer to doubts US residents may have about acquiring a seal-fur sporran - https://fwsepermits.servicenowservic...a520eae54bcbb6

It seems to suggest that if you have not caught, killed and skinned the protected species, and the item is for you own personal use, a product made from such fur in another country is acceptable - a Scottish-made sporran, for example.

Additionally, there is also a sort of cut-off date of 1971, and it looks like products made prior to that date might be exempt anyway. I'm pretty sure the Paisley's sporran pre-dates that by about 30 years.

This seems to apply to the USA as a whole, but other sections of the website shows contact and information details for the different states, so it could be there are local differences.

It also seems possible to be granted a licence to import restricted items under certain conditions, but that is mostly for scientific purposes. Would wearing a seal-skin sporran for different events qualify as 'scientific reasearch'..?

[Brian Rose]

I don't read quite that much into it. It talks about the exemption applying to "accompanying luggage" or a shipment of "household goods when moving to or from the US". Neither one of those would seem to apply to international packets.
Do we have any kilted lawyers who could interpret
that paragraph for laypersons?

[OC Richard]

About seal sporrans, I've heard several stories of Americans buying them from UK sellers on Ebay and the sporrans arriving in the USA just fine.

I also personally know of a Royal Mile shop which brought a large number of seal sporrans to the USA to sell at a Highland Games, and had them all seized at the festival site.

So it is illegal, the sporrans are subject to seizure, but the likelihood of getting caught is probably slim.

Likewise there are many US pipers regularly playing ivory-mounted pipes, which are subject to seizure anytime, anywhere, due to the possession of any ivory "worked or unworked" being banned here.

[Troglodyte]

I have heard of similar situations, hence my worries.

A vintage costume specialist colleague recently sent an irreplacable Vicotian corset (the sort of thing only now seen in the Metropolitan Museum in New York) to the USA. It was seized and destroyed by US customs, which meant no compensation claim could be made by either the buyer or seller - the reason being, it contained whale-bone stays.

The US customs office concerned took the letter of the law rather too strictly, and ingnored all guidelines despite the corset being a museum piece. The fact that this particular corset was well over 100 years old, and ought to have been exempt from any trade restrictions was beyond the customs officials' concern - or understanding!. They no doubt thought they had 'saved' a whale.

I fear the same could be the situation with seal-fur sporrans, even if they were made before the 1971 date mentioned in the regulations.