Quality Sporrans for less money

[OC Richard]

Yes W E Scott & Son Edinburgh is a possibility for sure.

In the mid-1980s I worked at a Highland Outfitter who carried Scott sporrans, and they sent us a tri-fold brochure, black & white, that had photos of all their sporran styles with curious code letters.

Each of the six pages of the brochure was a group photo.

Here's the page that has that Ebay one, upper left, though this one has a seal front. I believe the Ebay sporran has a pony front, and would have been designated STM/P



Interestingly, later on we made contact with a couple other Scottish sporran makers, and they sent us the same tri-fold brochure! The brochure was only photos and code letters, no other text. Thus it could be used by any sporran maker, and was.

This led me to call those sporran styles "canon" styles, due to a number of different makers making sporrans that followed the models seen in the photos.

Indeed L&M Highland Outfitters in Canada made all those same styles, and many Pakistani firms are making them now too.

What didn't dawn on me until recently was that this trifold brochure was more recent than I had imagined.

Though most of the six pages show styles that had been around since the 1930s one page showed sporrans that couldn't have existed until after 1970, black leather hybrid "semi-dress" sporrans.

Later on, somebody made a colour version of that brochure. Here's the more-or-less corresponding page, note that the curious code letters have been retained. Some are obvious HS Hunting Sporran, RR Rob Roy. But what on earth does AZSF mean?