As many of you know I love buckles and sporrans etc, and tend to collect sets of "piper's" belt hardware, crossbelt and waistbelt hardware.
So guess what came in the post today? The crossbelt set at right:
For comparison it's shown with a modern version. The vintage set is solid nickel (German Silver) while the modern set is chrome plated.
The waistbelt buckle shown with the modern set is the one intended to be worn with it, en suite. The waistbelt buckle shown with the vintage set is an old one I picked up on Ebay a while back, and appears to be a very close match. In Victorian and Edwardian times it was fairly common for waistbelt buckles to be made "portrait" while nowadays they're nearly always "landscape".
This pattern has been around for over 100 years and remains the most commonly seen "pipers'" belt set pattern.
Here you can see it worn by the Pipe Major of The Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders
Here is this crossbelt and waistbelt set in the widely-used photo pamphlet of sporran styles used by a large number of different Scottish sporranmakers for decades.
As you can see it is called #102. The other common pattern, #355, is rectilinear.
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