Of course you're correct that high quality things can be made anywhere.
I have seen Pakistani copies of traditional Scottish sporrans that look very close to the originals. Rarely, if ever, is the quality equivalent.
Being around the pipe band scene brings it into focus, because rather than having the experiences of a couple people who have owned this or that you have bands which have purchased 20 to 50 sporrans and put them through years of use (and yes, sometimes abuse).
So Band A purchases 30 Scottish-made sporrans, or L&M sporrans, and Band B purchases 30 Pakistani sporrans.
A year later, five years late, ten years later the differences are glaring.
One thing at play is the American throw-away mentality. "So what if six months after getting our new sporrans some of them are falling apart? Just throw them away! We bought tons of them, they're cheap!"
One band had the leather (pleather?) tab on the back that holds the strap start falling off on their sporrans after a year or two. They had to keep replacing them, fine enough but sometimes the sporran would fall apart during competition or a parade.
And that's the good news! Another band's sporrans had these tabs held on by rivets instead of stitching, and after some months it became apparent that many of these rivets had little sharp burrs and a number of $500 kilts were torn in front.
Ditto the Pakistani-made chain straps, which often have sharp bits that need to be filed down if you don't want your kilts ruined.
On the other hand there are legitimate retailers who sell Pakistani sporrans for considerably more than you could get them direct from Pakistan, but the sporrans the UK or North American retailers sell are of the nicer Pakistani sort, and are decent sporrans. (BTW the retailers I'm thinking of don't mention where the sporrans are made.)
So I stand by my statements. For every Pakistani sporran that has held up to heavy use for several years I can show you several that haven't.
On the other side there are bands still wearing sets of Scottish-made or L&M sporrans that their bands bought 30 years ago (or more).
Anyhow here's an Ebay listing of the typical pipe band black hunting sporran with chrome cantle.
I'm sure that this is a Pakistani one for a number of reasons, one being the three equal-sized huge chrome bosses.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Leather-Spo...temCondition=4
Proud Mountaineer from the Highlands of West Virginia; son of the Revolution and Civil War; first Europeans on the Guyandotte
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