Leather Sporran Colors

[Troglodyte]

When leather was coloured it would be in the range of natural-looking colours (though in truth I don't know how "natural" the quite dark brown that used to be popular was).

In my experience, all newly tanned leather (unless an exotic skin, like snake) is a kind of creamy/sandy colour, as the tanning and hair-removal process seems to have the same effect despite different animal origins.

Bovine (both calf and mature beast) are close to butter in colour, while pigskin is a similar buff shade with often a slight hint of pink. Sheep, goat and deer are similar to bovine - think buckskins for the natural colour.

Leathers produced commercially are invariably highly processed, with graining and texture being 'printed' or impressed under high pressure, and the dyed colour added for the intended market.

E. W. Scott had a range of pigskin sporrans which appeared in their catalogues as 'khaki' which was highly oil-absorbant and usually had an edge-binding strip in a slightly contrasting bovine leather as this is far better suited for that role. These sporrans have an appealing 'natural' appearance, but are actually coloured, and take on a pleasing patina with regular use. Sweaty hands are great for giving quick results.

A truly natural toned sporran would have a very pale appearance - like the buckskins I mentioned - so I believe the sporran-makers of the early to mid-20th century were sourcing their leathers and the colour very carefully.

All the old catalogues seem to be mainly brown leather for informal use (ie, not dressy eveningwear hair or fur) as that is the way in Britain (think 'No Brown in Town') as I believe most men would have only two sporrans - one for dressy occasions, the other for casual like Highland Games, hence the popularity of brown.

When it comes to the Highland regiments, the ORs were issued with brown sporrans which they had to make black, and it was not until they were promoted to NCO or above that their brown sporrans could remain brown. All ranks would be in black brogues (unlike other regiments in the British Army where officers and NCOs wear brown footwear) and it is this black-brogues-brown-sporran combo' that I believe influenced civilian daywear as men returned to civilian life after doing their military service.

Many people find mismatched leather colours make them feel awkward, and probably see a black sporran with black brogues as a better pairing than a brown sporran - so the sporran-makers happily obliged. Also, black looks smarter than brown, but is less dressy than fur or hair for daywear, and so having the option of black sporrans satisfies a market that at one time did not exist. How early the black option was avilable is a bit of guess-work - I have two identical sporrans by Forsyths, one in oxblood, the other black, that date from c1930s.