Quality Sporrans for less money

[OC Richard]

To my rather jaundiced eye those sporrans of that style are an insult to Scottish attire. They are built down to a price where quality and artistic effect are non-existent.

About quality I'll have to disagree, as it's made by Nicoll Brothers (Bankfoot) which were one of the old-school makers (going back to the 1840s). I've owned a few modern Nicoll Bros sporrans and to me the quality is quite good, a notch above W E Scott & Son (Edinburgh) but perhaps a notch below L&M Highland (Nova Scotia) who are two other old-school makers.

About artistic effect, that fundamental style has been around at least since the 1930s, that Celtic knot tooling pattern appearing on the flap, and oftentimes the body, here in 1938 (#55)



and here are various manifestations of it from various makers and various periods attesting to its long-term popularity.



Here's the Ebay sporran in question. I will say I prefer to the appearance of the sewn-in flap with leather binding as seen above, however on vintage sporrans I've noticed that the binding often starts coming loose.

The fold-over flap seen below has more long-term durability and makes reaching into the sporran a bit easier.

(The eagle-eyed will note that the lower-left sporran in the collage above is also by Nicoll Brothers Bankfoot.)