Kilt Pins

[Jack Daw]

How many and what kind do you have? Also I read somewhere that using the large safety pins as kilt pins is supposedly for female kilters only, any opinions on this?

I'm sure there are those that think those horse-blanket pins are for horses only.

[Tobus]

I read somewhere that using the large safety pins as kilt pins is supposedly for female kilters only, any opinions on this?

Sometimes I'm amazed by the rumours that get started out there. This is one I hadn't heard before.

Large safety pins or blanket pins are a perfectly acceptable and traditional choice as a kilt pin for males. I'm sure Jock Scot wouldn't steer us wrong on this!



A blanket pin is the only type of kilt pin I wear (pinned only through the outer apron, of course). It's mere decoration, as it really doesn't add weight or pin anything together. I don't personally care for flashy, blingy, gaudy kilt pins, with the exception of some of the antique cairngorm pins. But I stick to a simple blanket pin.

[Jock Scot]

Exactly so Tobus. I do wonder where all these mis-leading stories come from? The kilt pin that I wear is Silver and is hall marked 1913 and spent more than a while in France(not sure that it was actually worn in the trenches, but could well have done)during WW1. Try telling a Highlander that this style of kilt pin is for the girls and see what happens!

[JohntheBiker]

One of my favourite kilt pins:




London Scottish officer's kilt pin (sterling silver). Wear it all of the time - not a girl's kilt pin this!

[The Q]

I must admit I like kilt pins although I would prefer something more personal than the sword and foliage one the wife gave me so...
I have drawn up a list of pins I'll make. They'll be either moulded out of craft clay or modelled from sheet plastic card. The attachments will be magnets and penny washers as some one suggested in another thread.

1 A Yeoman keelboat, I have two Yeoman class Association dinners to go to later this year.
2 my own design mini keelboat,
3 A Great Western Railway "shirt button" logo in remembrance of one grandfather.
4 A tank in rememberance of the other grandfather probably a Matilda which he served in WW2
5 A type 88 Radar Head (aerial), I worked on those.
6 A Tornado ADV, I worked on those too.
7 A Land Rover 110 I'm always working on mine!
8 there may be others......
My Dad is still around but for him I have a choice of a TSR2, or Canberra, or Shackleton or Edinburgh castle all of which he worked on or in.
Oh and I'd better not forget the wife, a rough collie (see avatar) or a pallet and paint brushes ( her main hobby)

[OC Richard]

How many and what kind do you have?

Have you seen this thread? One of my favourites!

http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...lt-pins-64703/

[OC Richard]

Don't wear one and never have. I find them an unnecessary bit of boy bling and more importantly, the majority are a hazzard to the health of the front apron.

I too am not a fan. I'm pretty much a "less is more" person, 40 years of piping having caused me to pare down my kit to the essential items needed for a smart professional appearance. Long ago I dispensed with kilt pin, sgian, waistcoat, and belt. I do have all these things but they're rarely worn.

Kilt pins not only serve no purpose but also, as mentioned above, can do positive damage. Stabbing holes in a $600 kilt doesn't strike me as advantageous.

Anyone who has dug through a heap of old band kilts, where the band wore kilt pins, has seen the damage done: the best kilts have holes, the worst have tears, sometimes big enough to put your hand through. It's very easy for this to happen, for example when a drummer unhooks his extremely heavy snare drum, and as it goes down it catches on the kilt pin. Or, a band is marching through a crowded pub and somebody's kilt pin catches on a chair.

What prompted me to stop wearing a kilt pin was me noticing that every time I got into my car, the pin would get pulled by the steering wheel.

I have a lovely kilt pin, made to order for me in the 1980s. The firm made this pendant but didn't offer it as a pin.



About the blanket pins, they've long been worn in The Gordon Highlanders

[RCAnderson]

When I first started wearing the kilt again last year I wore kilt pins of various styles, depending on the function and kilt. But then I started noticing the very minimal damage that was being caused by poking holes in the front apron with the kilt pin so I immediately stopped wearing them all together.

I fight with the band over the kilt pin all the time. They want me to wear one as part of my uniform, but I refuse to wear one. If I am supplying the kilt with my hard earned money, I will not intentionally damage it by poking holes through it for a kilt pin. If they want to fork over the money to start buying my kilts I will be happy to tear their up with whatever pin they so choose.

About 30 of my kilts have never had a pin stuck on them even once, and they never will.

[Jock Scot]

I have two kilts and each kilt has a pin and once in place to my satisfaction they do not move. In 70 something years I have worn the kilt shooting, fishing, around the farm, extensive walking in the Scottish country side and never once has the kilt pin caused a problem. I have ripped kilts on barbed wire, brambles and a Land Rover door latch, but not one of those accidents can be blamed on the kilt pin. On thinking about it I don't recall anyone that I know having a problem either with the kilt pin, so its a matter of luck and personal choice, I suppose.

[The Q]

The land rover door catch is renown I've ruined a few pairs of trouser on it . if its your own landrover may i recomend http://foundry4x4.co.uk/index.php?ro...&product_id=68

As for the pin in kilt being the problem I would agree it could be, hence my above mention of a kilt magnet.