Clan Crest kilt pins

[OC Richard]

I was looking at all the Clan-Crest-on-a-sword kilt pins on Ebay and thought it might be nice to take a longer view of these things, which many people getting into Highland Dress nowadays take for granted as "the" traditional Scottish kilt pin.

AFAIK the Clan Crest accessory craze went hand-in-glove with the Clan Tartan craze, launched one could say by the Royal Visit in 1822, and part of a wider Gaelic Revival with romanticized images and writings about Highland things.

It was captured in full bloom by MacLeay



where you can see men wearing Clan Crests on bonnets, sporrans, plaid brooches, and kilt pins.

As you can see the Clan Crest kilt pins of the period were like the bonnet badge, in fact could have been the same badge, or perhaps a slightly smaller version of it:



I should point out that kilt pins in general weren't common in the Victorian period, most men going without. Kilt pins were usually round, or simple blanket pins.

By the time we get to the 20th century the Clan Crest accessory fad was done. Highland Dress was sleek and far fewer accessories were worn. Kilt pins, when worn, were usually plain blanket pins.



This catalogue from c1930 only shows blanket pins and grouse claw pins.



This catalogue from 1960 has a variety of Robert Allison kilt pins. You can see that the sword & targe motif has become common



And I did come across this kilt pin in one of the classic Robert Allison sword designs with a Clan Crest, so these did exist



The first time I personally saw one of the modern Crest & sword pins from a modern maker was here, in the Scottish Shopper catalogue, this one from c1990. My earlier catalogues only had classic Robert Allison pins.

On the bottom left you can see the new range of Clan Crest kilt pins by Carrick (est. 1971)



Here's an old Carrick pin on its original card. I've never liked the way they moved the Crest up to cover the area where the hilt, blade, and crossguard meet, all of these things magically disappearing under the Crest.



Here's a Carrick pin of the sort I sold in the 1980s when I worked at a Highland Outfitter. We had a big rotating rack of these.



I have read that around 2005 Carrick was obtained by the St Kilda Group (Gaelic Themes, RG Hardie, Peter Henderson, etc) though the Gaelic Themes kilt pins look totally different (see below).