Semi-Dress or Daywear?

[Brian Rose]

I don't read quite that much into it. It talks about the exemption applying to "accompanying luggage" or a shipment of "household goods when moving to or from the US". Neither one of those would seem to apply to international packets.
Do we have any kilted lawyers who could interpret
that paragraph for laypersons?

[OC Richard]

About seal sporrans, I've heard several stories of Americans buying them from UK sellers on Ebay and the sporrans arriving in the USA just fine.

I also personally know of a Royal Mile shop which brought a large number of seal sporrans to the USA to sell at a Highland Games, and had them all seized at the festival site.

So it is illegal, the sporrans are subject to seizure, but the likelihood of getting caught is probably slim.

Likewise there are many US pipers regularly playing ivory-mounted pipes, which are subject to seizure anytime, anywhere, due to the possession of any ivory "worked or unworked" being banned here.

[Troglodyte]

I have heard of similar situations, hence my worries.

A vintage costume specialist colleague recently sent an irreplacable Vicotian corset (the sort of thing only now seen in the Metropolitan Museum in New York) to the USA. It was seized and destroyed by US customs, which meant no compensation claim could be made by either the buyer or seller - the reason being, it contained whale-bone stays.

The US customs office concerned took the letter of the law rather too strictly, and ingnored all guidelines despite the corset being a museum piece. The fact that this particular corset was well over 100 years old, and ought to have been exempt from any trade restrictions was beyond the customs officials' concern - or understanding!. They no doubt thought they had 'saved' a whale.

I fear the same could be the situation with seal-fur sporrans, even if they were made before the 1971 date mentioned in the regulations.