I saw a nice used sealskin sporran on eBay UK and asked the seller if it was legal for me to buy and import into the US. He said he had sold many into the US, but if I had questions, to contact US Customs. From what I can tell, the Marine Mammal Protection Act is actually administered by the US Fish & Wildlife Service, so I spent a couple of weeks trying to get a straight answer to what I thought should have been simple questions:

1. Is it legal for me to import a NEW sporran made from sealskin from
Scotland (or the UK)? (I believe the answer to this question is
"no", but it would be nice to have an authoritative statement from
someone who knows for certain.)

2. Is legal for me to import a USED sporran made from sealskin from
Scotland (or the UK)? This (in my mind, anyway) seems fuzzier.
The gentleman on eBay UK said that he thought that new articles
made from sealskin could not be imported into the US, but second
hand articles could. Is that true?

3. Is it legal for me to POSSESS any kind of sporran made from sealskin --
i.e. is the ban solely a ban on importation or is there a ban on
mere possession? (That is, if I found someone in the US who already
had a sealskin sporran, is it legal for me to buy it??)

After calling and corresponding with several people at the Fish & Wildlife Service, I finally gave up and bought a fox-fur sporran. I never could get a straight answer to *any* of these questions, not even to question #1!

Amazing! I had no idea that these were difficult questions...