Not a piper but like the look of a horse hair sporran

[Panache]

I love my horsehair sporran. It isn't for everyday, but it is a striking bit of kit.

Cheers

Jamie

[Neil Clark]

Define "Piper" lol. Wear yer sporran!

[OC Richard]

In the latter half of the 19th century long hair sporrans were nearly universal, having evolved from the small fur sporrans of the late 18th/early 19th century. They were for everyone, not only the military or pipers.

Here are some men wearing long hair sporrans (goathair or horsehair) back in the old days













Now in the early 20th century new sporran styles emerged, small pocketlike things, leather ones for "day" dress and sealskin ones for "evening" dress, and to this day it is these which are regarded as "correct". Here they are in 1930, not long after their introduction



But! Even today you'll see the older, more traditional style, such as these young men at the Oban Ball



And they're shown in this c1960 catalogue



and I'm a big fan of them... this is my everyday sporran

[sevenoaks]

Thanks guys,
I remember both my Grandfather wore sporrans like these.
One Grandfather was a Farmer/Sheepherder. he wore his kilt every day. It is how I remember him best. He was always a grizzly looking man to me and always had straw, grass and wool stuck to him. He walked the Fells of Cumbria every day of his life. His long flowing sporran always fascinated me. I remember him to be a happy robust kind of guy. He also drove a a 4 horse coach from one small village to another every weekend. One day his horses ran away on him while coming over the "Coniston Pass" in the Lake District of Cumberland. Unfortunately a small girl was killed. He was a changed man after that and his life appeared to go out of him until his death a few years later.
My other Grandfather was a larger than life kind of guy. I think he is the one that had the biggest influence on my younger years. He also was always in a kilt but hardly ever wore a horsehair sporran. He smelled of oil, heat and sweat. He was killed while moving a thrashing machine down a hill from Ireby to Cauldbeck in Cumberland. He was a man before his age and Electrified the whole village of Ireby; years before any other city or village had access to the "New Age". It was a DC system and he had huge banks of batteries that were charged by a steam driven generator. My job was to oil and polish the brass fitting on the engine and generator. I took great pride in doing this as a boy and I felt a huge loss and sadness when he died but he instilled in me my morals and the love of fine tuned mechanical mechanical equipment.
I digress.
Thank you guys for your input and I will be wearing my kilts and horsehair sporran with pride. It connects me to my past and damn it... a kilt is just the right thing for a man to wear.
Those are great pictures OC... Thank you for posting them.

[CMcG]

The native Scots will tell you that it's "just not done" in Scotland today. Nobody wears horse hair sporrans except the military and pipers. That seems to be the situation with modern Highland traditionalism......

Is that so? I thought I had read that long hair sporrans were not typically worn as THCD daywear in Scotland anymore, but that they still might occasionally be seen in THCD formal evening attire.

I sometimes wear the horsehair sporran that my dad used to wear in his youth when he was a piper. Luckily for me, there are no badges or crests on it. It only comes out for black tie events.

[Muddy]

I wish they still made 'em long and a bit scraggly on the ends like in the old photos.
Now, they're all trimmed short and perfect on the bottom. I much prefer the look of
the old ones.

[Downunder Kilt]

I wish they still made 'em long and a bit scraggly on the ends like in the old photos.
Now, they're all trimmed short and perfect on the bottom. I much prefer the look of
the old ones.

They still do Muddy, here is a photo of my goat hair sporran

[Tobus]

Is that so? I thought I had read that long hair sporrans were not typically worn as THCD daywear in Scotland anymore, but that they still might occasionally be seen in THCD formal evening attire.

I sometimes wear the horsehair sporran that my dad used to wear in his youth when he was a piper. Luckily for me, there are no badges or crests on it. It only comes out for black tie events.

Yes, Colin, you are correct. I'm not sure why I failed to spell that out. I just naturally assumed we were talking about daywear, but that was never specified by the OP. Like you, I wear mine for evening dress and consider it just fine. I've seen plenty of examples from Scotland in that regard too...

[Thomas H]

I wish they still made 'em long and a bit scraggly on the ends like in the old photos.
Now, they're all trimmed short and perfect on the bottom. I much prefer the look of
the old ones.

Here is one I made from long goat hair - I could not find one to buy any where , so I just made it


I like the shaggy look as well - Mat called it the doctor seuss sporran

[OC Richard]

I wish they still made 'em long and a bit scraggly on the ends like in the old photos.
Now, they're all trimmed short and perfect on the bottom. I much prefer the look of
the old ones.

What you're mainly seeing is the difference between goathair sporrans and horsehair sporrans.

But even with horsehair sporrans, the way the bottom is finished is something which has changed over time, one of those "fashion" things that changes for no apparent reason. (And in old photos and old catalogues it's sometimes very difficult to tell goathair and horsehair sporrans apart.)

Anyhow, here are some Highlanders in 1856 showing the fashion of letting the bottom end in a fringe of scraggly hair



Now here are some Pipe Majors c1900 showing the fashion(s) at that time



and here in the 1960s we can see that the sporrans are often trimmed to a curve





Currently in the Army there's a tendency to trim the bottom straight across, which I don't care for





My sporran BTW is a modern goathair one, with a vintage cantle