To Kilt pin or not to Kilt pin that is the question?

[OC Richard]

Well let me put your mind not at rest, about wearing kilt-pins.

Yes you can have an individual, or two, or three, say they've worn kilt pins for many years with no problems.

It's what they call anecdotal evidence. With drugs it's "I took some ______ and my problem went away". The medical field doesn't take anecdotal evidence seriously, what they want are long-term studies with a large number of participants so as to get statistically valid data.

I don't think such a study about kilt pin wearing has ever been conducted or ever will be conducted, but perhaps the closest thing to it is something I've done several times over the years, and that's look through a pile of kilts owned by a pipe band.

A pipe band will typically own 30 to 50 kilts, and a pipe band will typically wear the same tartan for many years, for decades, sometimes for a half-century or more.

So, when you examine a band's set of kilts you're seeing a large number of kilts, many of them 20 or 30 years old or more, kilts which have been worn by many different people over a long period of time. You're seeing, cumulatively, hundreds of years of kiltwearing by hundreds of different individuals.

A band set of kilts of a band that has always worn kilt pins is entirely different from a band set of kilts of a band that has not. The latter pile of kilts will be in pretty good condition. Yes there are pleats which have started to come open here and there, some belt loops which have come loose, some buckles missing here or there, some stains.

If the band has always worn kilt pins what you see is kilt after kilt with worn fuzzy places where the kilt pins go, and that's the best ones. Many have ragged holes where the kilt pins go. Many have actual rips and tears, the worst large enough to put your hand through. In a pile of 40 kilts you might not find a single one that's not damaged where the kilt pin goes.

Yes I realise that bands are harder or their kilts than other kiltwearers. One culprit are the heavy drums which have metal bits sticking out all over. When a drummer unhooks his drum to set it on the ground oftentimes a metal bit catches the kilt pin and there's a little rip.

Pipers too, but for a different reason: pipers often have to march about in crowded rooms while playing. Both hands are on the chanter, the piper is trying to pipe while shoving his way between close-packed chairs... and rip! a kilt pin catches on a chair. It happens all the time.

When Drum Majors are twirling their mace I've seen the chains on a mace catch on the kilt-pin. Also the chains on the little knife and fork on the dirk catch on the kilt pin, fine unless something yanks on the dirk, like the mace. (At a show once our Drum Major's mace, while being twirled, struck his dirk so hard that the stone from the little fork went flying into the audience, never to be seen again.)

So yes back in the 70s and 80s I would wear a kilt pin. Heck, for years I wore two! But I've not worn one for many years now. Getting a $600 kilt and poking holes in it is sort of like buying an $80,000 car and punching holes in the sheet metal with an ice pick. No thanks.

[Finistere]

Thank you OC Richard, That's thrown a spanner in the works for sure!!!!, I'm with on new car scenario, as I've said before I think I'll stick to being unpinned, I just wanted to know how many do and how many don't and have gleaned so much from this thread, the observations you have stated puts everything into context, so thank you very much for your invaluable comment. Kit

[duke_19_62]

A major way off topic but does your husband who is on the light side ever get picked on by the one(s) who are heavier than he? Additionally, have you and your husbands ever considered the possibility of a reality TV show?

I think she meant the kilt was on the light side, not the husband. I may be wrong, of course.

[Liam]

I don't wear a kilt pin.

As to the original question, I have a kilt pin for every kilt.

[MacCathmhaoil]

I started wearing a kilt in a military pipe band as a young cadet and a pin was required kit, now forty some years later I feel naked without it. The pin I wear is a family heirloom, a heavy old sterling silver stag's leg (c.1870). I have had the pin replaced with a finer one and had a safety chain added. It is preferable to leave the pin in place and not keep stabbing new holes in the apron everytime you want to wear the kilt.

[Pleater]

I have not worn a kilt pin since I got a rather painful stab from a blanket pin one which I knelt on when at infant school, but our house is undergoing an overhaul to repurpose a bedroom as home workshop, and I found this;



which I have worn for a couple of days as a kilt pin.

The pin is very much thinner than the blanket pin type



So I am confident that it will not damage the fabric, and it has a locking ring to hold the pin securely.
I cannot remember when I acquired it, nor where, nor for what purpose, as it must date from several decades ago at least.
Yes it might snag - I did raise it up an inch or so from its first position so it did not get bounced about so much, so perhaps a little experimentation will pay off to find the exact spot for best effect. This one is now staying fairly still rather than flying out to get involved with anything passing close by.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[The Q]

To me a kilt seems naked without a kilt pin.

I've only worn a kilt occasionally since this year, And not had a problem with the sword kilt pin I wore.
I also have a sail boat kilt pin I made with a penny washer stuck on the back and a strong penny magnet to hold it.
The only problem I had was when the penny magnet decided the bouy chain I was handling was more attractive than the kilt pin. Luckily I stopped the kilt sailing boat disappearing into the water.

[OC Richard]

Now one thing that I might do, were I wanting to wear a kilt-pin, is to make two little loops of thread on the kilt so that the pin passes through these, avoiding punching holes in the kilt fabric itself.

In general I'm not into extra "bling" with my kilts... no kilt pin, no lapel pins, no tie pins. Also, usually, no sgian, no waistbelt. So the anti-kilt pin thing comes from both practical and aesthetic considerations.

Odd, in a way, because when I first started kiltwearing The Scottish Shopper catalogue was my Sears Wishbook, and I was especially taken by the full-page photo showing a variety of beautiful sterling kilt pins. These were various traditional designs such as sword, sword-with-targe, etc. I longed to have one of those kilt pins!

Given the variety of lovely traditional kilt pins, it surprised me when, on a thread here called "show us your kilt pins", it could be seen that the preponderance of the things XMarkers are wearing as kilt pins aren't kilt pins as such; they were not designed or made as kilt pins, but rather are random pins pressed into service as kilt pins.

[Father Bill]

I agree very strongly with your taste in pins Richard, but then, you and I are certainly traditionalists. I don't like the stuff that's, as you say, "...pressed into service..." as kilt pins.

Now, mine aren't swords, but I do have a lovely sterling silver Celtic cross that I got from Ian Grant in Edinburgh, and another less fancy cross as well. They go well with my clerical collar.

[Taskr]

Two kilts, two pins. Both 'swords'. I simply take care to work the pin tip into the weave of the fabric. No issues with catching on anything.