Sapphire mink sporran arrived

[RichardtheLarge]

http://imgur.com/xKcgzZy
Just received a beautiful sapphire mink dress sporran from William Scott. This was customized with their Celtic dragon cantle and five rolled mink tassels.

I was on the fence between sapphire and white mink, and ultimately chose the sapphire for a couple of reasons:
It’s a better facsimile for the historic sealskin sporrans
It won’t show dirt and wear quite as quickly as white
I very much like the subtlety of contrast between the silver fur and silver metal. I wasn’t expecting to like it quite as much as I do!

[FossilHunter]

Beautiful. Is the cantle silver plated? I think I saw a white mink sporran from them with a plated cantle.

[RichardtheLarge]

Beautiful. Is the cantle silver plated? I think I saw a white mink sporran from them with a plated cantle.

I asked about this Cantle with silver plate, but it’s apparently no longer available. This version is with chrome cones, Cantle and chain. Kinloch Anderson still lists the white mink with silver plated cantle on their site, so they might have a few left.

Over time, I’m collecting several things in sterling, but I feel that silver plate isn’t the best choice for these types of items: the silver will tarnish over time, and it’s entirely possible to remove the silver plate during an attempt to polish the plate!

I understand that there’s some dislike for chrome on sporrans and other highlandwear among the rabble, but I like chrome in the context of formalwear. My wedding band is rhodium plated and my pocket watch is sterling, so the chrome accessories are quite a good match as “polished sterling surrogates”.

Down the road, I’ll be looking at a sterling fitted sgian dubh and maybe a sterling cantle dress sporran. Angora, maybe...?

[Mike S]

Beautiful dress sporran. Congratulations!