History of seal skin sporrans

[Woodsheal]

Sealskin has been used to make sporrans for literally hundreds of years, with seal skins being traded from the North of Scotland for probably close on to a thousand years, if not longer. Generally speaking the present shape of the modern seal skin sporran dates from the 19th century and is, in fact, evolved from the sporrans of the 17th and 18th centuries.

Exactly! Sealing is comparable to whaling in terms of having a LONG history, in both the Old and New Worlds. Even Nantucket whalemen would engage in sealing to augment their whale-oil trade, as I'm sure took place in the Brits' Greenland fishery as well. So, as Mac states, sealskin products of all sorts surely date back many centuries....