Quality Sporrans for less money

[Tomo]

I just picked up this sporran on Ebay for $65.

And very nice it is too - the cantle is great and I love the long-link chain.

A modern version of the chain alone from Margaret Morrison will set you back pretty much what you paid for the sporran!!

[KennethSime]

Another excellent deal, Richard. That Sporran looks great.

[OC Richard]

Thanks! I'm anxious to get it in my hands for a better look.

Here's a Nicoll Brothers Bankfoot brown leather/seal front Day sporran, in the USA, under $50 free shipping.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Nicoll-Bros...kAAOSwYgBgaJQ-

Looks like the fur has seen better days, though the leather looks like new.

[MurrayInGA]

Thanks! I'm anxious to get it in my hands for a better look.

Here's a Nicoll Brothers Bankfoot brown leather/seal front Day sporran, in the USA, under $50 free shipping.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Nicoll-Bros...kAAOSwYgBgaJQ-

Looks like the fur has seen better days, though the leather looks like new.

Thanks for sharing. That’s very much my style and have been on the lookout for a better sporran for some time. Will try to snag it.

[OC Richard]

This is exceedingly strange!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/16483131265...ndition=4%7C10

It's common on Ebay to see vintage sporrans with goofy aftermarket alterations. It can be an entertaining exercise to try to figure out what a sporran might have originally been, and what was done to it by some previous owner.

This is a Nicoll Brothers horsehair sporran.

First off you can see that it's in practically new condition.

Notice that it originally had tassels, now missing.

Oddest of all is the leather front. I've not seen one like that from Nicoll Bros or anyone else. Had it been original to the sporran the brown leather would almost certainly had some shape to it, and certainly had a finished bottom edge, probably with a row of stitching, or a groove going along the edge.

If you look closely, where the brown leather goes under the rim, you can see the leather is a bit uneven and rough.

Obviously something looking like that wouldn't have been done in the Nicoll Bros shop.

Almost certainly the sporran would have looked something like this originally (though this one is in less-than-pristine condition, with smashed cones)

[OC Richard]

Classic brown leather Day Dress sporran, great condition, with the gold oval Made In Scotland Real Leather stamp.

Under $50 including shipping.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/27477444866...ndition=4%7C10

[FossilHunter]

Classic brown leather Day Dress sporran, great condition, with the gold oval Made In Scotland Real Leather stamp.

Under $50 including shipping.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/27477444866...ndition=4%7C10

That’s a really nice one.

[OC Richard]

This is a beautiful and quite old sporran, I would guess from the interwar years, c1930.

The opening bid is incredibly low.

I'm a bit concerned about the size listed, which makes it a tad small for an adult sporran, yet bigger than youth sporrans generally are. Perhaps it's a quirk in how it was measured.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/27478205860...ndition=4%7C10

Not a sporran, but a lovely c1930-1950 waistbelt buckle, probably in solid German Silver (cupro-nickel, nickle-silver) and perhaps silver plated, hard to tell. Under $40 with shipping.

I wonder, in the months this buckle has been on Ebay, how many people have passed it up to spend the same amount on a cheap-looking modern chrome buckle.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/39327436639...temCondition=4

[FossilHunter]

This is a beautiful and quite old sporran, I would guess from the interwar years, c1930.

The opening bid is incredibly low.

I'm a bit concerned about the size listed, which makes it a tad small for an adult sporran, yet bigger than youth sporrans generally are. Perhaps it's a quirk in how it was measured.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/27478205860...ndition=4%7C10

Not a sporran, but a lovely c1930-1950 waistbelt buckle, probably in solid German Silver (cupro-nickel, nickle-silver) and perhaps silver plated, hard to tell. Under $40 with shipping.

I wonder, in the months this buckle has been on Ebay, how many people have passed it up to spend the same amount on a cheap-looking modern chrome buckle.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/39327436639...temCondition=4

Do you suppose that buckle would work with a standard kilt belt? Or would it need a thicker one?

[OC Richard]

Do you suppose that buckle would work with a standard kilt belt? Or would it need a thicker one?

Thing is, there are two standard widths. Almost certainly this would be for the wider of the two.

Since at least the 1840s the standard civilian "dirk belts" or waistbelts were 2.5 inches wide.

At that time the Cameron Highlanders put their pipers into a civilian kit with dark green doublets, dark blue Glengarries, and black leather sword belts and dirk belts with silver buckles and fittings, all of these things new to the military, and in the army worn only by the six pipers of that battalion.

Here they are! At the far left. The only men in dark green jackets, the only men in doublets, the only men wearing Glengarries, the only men with black wide dirk belts and sword belts with silver fittings.



Ironically this entirely civilian outfit is now what people call "military piper's dress" or "number one dress".

Those dirk belts and sword belts (waistbelts and crossbelts) were standard in civilian Highland Dress throughout the Victorian period.



Here are some styles, note that the waistbelt buckles were made in both portrait and landscape orientation



However after 1900 civilian Highland Dress became simplified, and divested itself of most of the traditional impedimenta. Thus dirks and the belts that supported them ceased to be worn in mainstream civilian Highland Dress.



Then around 1930 a new civilian Evening Dress jacket was invented, the Montrose, ending at the waist all around (in Victorian terminology a "shell jacket").



A new style of waistbelt, purely ornamental (as a dirk wasn't worn) was invented specifically for this jacket, narrower, at 2.25 inches. New buckle styles were invented for this belt.

Here's the buckle most often seen. There's also a common thistle style, and a so-called "bullseye" (goddess-eye) version.



This narrower Montrose belt or civilian Evening Dress belt is what's regarded as a "civilian kilt belt" nowadays.