of Hunting sporrans

[OC Richard]

Just last night my Pipe Band issued me a sporran, in the typical Pipe Band style, a Hunting sporran in black leather with chrome top.

Additionally it has the laser-etched disc rivetted onto the front, which more and more Pipe Bands are getting.

Now I have three Hunting sporrans to hand, and I thought I'd share them, being so different from each other.

So here left to right

1) new Hunting sporran, 1930s style, by Margaret Morrison, two different brown leathers.

2) Hunting sporran by Nicoll Brothers, Bankfoot, black with nickel top, both the cantle and body were AFAIK unique to that firm. It possibly dates to the 1990s or so.

3) Hunting sporran by unknown maker, but in the more-or-less standard mid-to-late 20th century shape, as long made by W E Scott Edinburgh and L&M Highland in Nova Scotia.



It takes certain light to be able to see the engraving on the metal.



The rear view shows the various shapes a bit better. Note the squat round shape seen with Nicoll Bros sporrans, and the nearly straight-sided profile on the copy of vintage sporrans by Margaret Morrison.



When I say that the Margaret Morrison sporran is a 1930s style, here's why: it appears in old catalogues, here in the Rowan's 1938 catalogue



and in the Anderson's 1936 catalogue, both with and without studs.



By the way, these catalogues only offer leather sporrans in brown.

About the sporran on the right at top, a thoroughly modern Pipe Band sporran, the lineage goes back to the more-or-less standard Hunting sporran design as long made (and still made) by W E Scott (Edinburgh) and by L&M Highland (Nova Scotia) seen here in the traditional leather, pigskin or cow-hide treated to resemble pigskin, both with and without a brass cantle.

The cantle is a standard Evening Dress design, but done up in brass for the Day Dress leather sporran.



Brown Hunting sporrans with metal cantles have been around at least since 1900, here in 1909. I have no idea where or when the style originated.



At some point, I believe around 1970, with the Kilt Hire Industry taking off and a need for inexpensive sporrans which could be paired with black Prince Charlies, black leather Day sporrans began being made in large numbers, and elements of Evening Dress sporrans such as the silver cantles and silver cones and chains for the tassels, began being added. In any case it was just one step from the brown & brass metal-cantle Hunting sporran above to the black & nickel metal-cantle Hunting sporran below.

Various new hybrid sporrans appeared, combing the bodies of traditional Day Dress brown leather sporrans (but now done in black) with silver elements from Evening Dress sporrans, which were now dubbed "semi dress sporrans" a category which previously hadn't existed. (I'm talking about the sporrans made for and sold to people of normal means; of course at any time a wealthy member of the aristocracy could have any sort of sporran made.)

In any case note that the black & nickel sporran is now included on the page of Evening sporrans, which previously a leather sporran wouldn't have been. You can also see where it borrowed its cantle from.



For whatever reason this black leather + nickel top Hunting sporran, in the 1980s and 1990s, became enormously popular with Pipe Bands the world over. At a contest you could see a dozen bands in a row wearing them. Today shops sell these as "pipe band sporrans" so connected has the style become with pipe bands. Yet the style has no pipe band or military lineage at all, being an ordinary traditional brown-leather Hunting sporran which has undergone a makeover.