So many makers, so few sporrans

[Nathan]

I was composing this in the "What would you do?" thread but it closed before I posted it. It's fair enough since it was a bit of a tangent from the OP. That thread got me thinking about intellectual property with respect to clothing designs.

OCRichard has pointed out that for a long time sporran makers across Scotland used a common catalogue with identical photos and product codes and competitors made virtually identical sporrans for the commercial market. Obviously each of these sporrans and their respective cantles were originally designed by someone. Does anyone know the background around this practice and whether and how the intellectual property rights of the designers was protected or was it just a simple variation on a traditional theme and therefore considered public domain?

Anyone with input on the legal background of the 20th Century sporran trade in Scotland?

[MacRobert's Reply]

I have two sporrans that were made in the 1950s. Both have silver-plated cantles. One cantle is engraved and I have never seen a modern sporran with this design, although similar designs were around from the 1920s.

The other is pressed or cast and the same design can be found on modern chrome-plated cantles although the bags are a wee bit different. I guess that casting or pressing is much cheaper that engraving and once the pattern or tooling is made, the manufacturer can go on producing across the decades.

I wonder if, like many other products that were originally manufactured in Britain, the patterns or tooling are now abroad. Sporran makers generally buy in cantles for the sporrans they make rather than producing their own.

Highland buttons and kilt-belt buckles also seem to be produced in chrome plate to the same patterns as the earlier silver-plated ones.

[RockyR]

While it has changed a bit in the past few years, most sporran makers in Scotland bought their standard cantle designs from the same supplier (Dalman and Narborough in Birmingham), so there wasn't much worry about Scottish sporran makers infringing on each other's copyrights since the wholesaler of the PART was the one who owned the copyright and they happily sold the cantles to any sporran maker. That being said, when a company in Pakistan or elsewhere copies that cantle design without Dalman's permission, they're in the wrong.

Many companies (especially buckle companies) have begun designing and marketing their OWN cantle designs to compliment their buckles (TANGENT: yes, dress sporrans meant to wear with a belt buckle... a faux pas, but one that's been encouraged by the industry). Those cantles (also copyrighted) have been copied by companies in Pakistan as well in recent years.

To show that it's not JUST Pakistan doing this: A few years ago a Scottish sporran maker took several of Dalman's cantle designs and had them cast in China and put them on their own sporrans and sold them for full price. Dalman's found out about this and successfully prosecuted them and became the proud owners of boxes of cheap Chinese knockoff cantles. I'm not posting the Scottish sporran company's name, but they are one of (if not the) biggest sporran companies in Scotland.

[RockyR]

SNIP.. I guess that casting or pressing is much cheaper that engraving and once the pattern or tooling is made, the manufacturer can go on producing across the decades.

I wonder if, like many other products that were originally manufactured in Britain, the patterns or tooling are now abroad. Sporran makers generally buy in cantles for the sporrans they make rather than producing their own.

Yes, stamping is much easier to replicate and much cheaper than hand engraving each one. That being said, the stamped cantles and ones that are cast from pewter are still made in the UK. I know of 3 companies that make cantles from cast pewter (and sell them to sporran makers) and 1 that stamps theirs (see post above).

[artificer]

There are still a few smaller scale dress cantle makers in Scotland doing original designs. Clan Art does their own pieces in pewter, as does Black Isle Pewter in Glasgow (if memory serves).
Although I believe Black Isle only sells to the trade, where Clan Art will sell retail and even has an etsy store.

There are obviously some high end silver makers at works as well, but they'll be a LOT more expensive for certain obvious reasons.

ith:

[Nathan]

that's fair enough, but the same cantle can be used on a different sporran. In the case of the catalogues, every detail of each sporran was the same, regardless of the maker. You could order an EW1 based on the same photo in a different catalogue from a whole host of outfitters. Who's photos were these and why did people adhere to this particular canon so rigidly?

[RockyR]

Tradition? Lack of imagination? Dunno why they stuck to the same designs.

As to the photo, maybe the different catalogs all bought from the same sporran maker? Maybe there were different conventions about 'IP' back then with respect to sporran designs?

[OC Richard]

What Nathan is referring to is the tri-fold photo of offered sporran styles which was shared by a number of Scottish sporranmakers over the years.

I don't know which maker the photo originated with. I saw it many times through the 1970s and 1980s used in various catalogues and by a number of different makers, one that comes to memory was William Scott & Son, Edinburgh.

It seemed to almost form the template for what sporrans each maker was expected to offer. I remember when a new maker sent our shop some literature and sure enough there was that same photo! But he had a second (colour) photo with some different designs as well.

L&M Highland Outfitters in Nova Scotia continues to offer many of those exact styles.

All the makers appeared to get their hardware from the same sources. The brass and chromeplated hardware bore no marks while the silverplated hardware was stamped Made In Scotland.

Here's the original thread with a scan of this thrice-folded photo

http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...-styles-77256/

I have a number of vintage Highland Dress catalogues from the 1920s through 1940s and there appeared to be more variety in sporran design at that time. However some designs crop up over and over from the 1920s til today with little variation. I have scans of several of these in the thread linked to above.

Same with the hardware itself: some designs persisted over many years with no variation to speak of, and sometimes with noticeable variation.

Here's two sets of the crossbelt/waistbelt set called #102 in the old catalogues, a new chromeplated one on the left and a vintage solid 'German silver' set on the right



And then you had 'boutique' makers like Alexander Robertson. He hand-made his cantles out of sheet brass. His sporrans were essentially replicas of 18th century "Culloden" sporrans.