Thank you

[mark weston]

Good afternoon from foggy northern California.

To bring others up to date, I have a sporran that i picked up close to 50 years ago. I am attempting with your help to identify this piece of Scottish history. It was made by
"W. Jardine & Sons, Military Outfitters, Edinburgh". The sporran has white horse hair with two black tassels. Under the purse flap is a very faint ink stamp marking. It appears to be from a movie studio but i am unable to make it out.

Hopefully the link below will work.

https://postimg.cc/gallery/jxcR6mP/3...g%5D%5B/url%5D

take care,
Mark Weston

[OC Richard]

Thanks for posting those!

As it happens I have run across that pattern sporran a couple times over the years.

Both of the ones I saw had three knobs:



As far as I know it's a civilian pattern. However it looks like the lion and cross are surrounded by maple leafs so it might be a Canadian regiment. The closest I can find is the old-style Cameron Highlanders Of Canada badge which has a lion and cross, and maple leaves

If it was civilian, there were dozens and dozens of different civilian horsehair sporran designs made between c1840 and today.

The heyday of the ornate solid cast German Silver cantles was from around 1880 up till around 1930. So I'd guess somewhere in that time period for your sporran.

[mark weston]

good morning.
the photo you posted is exactly like what i have minus the knobs on top of the cantle. i will keep researching.
thank you for your insight and expertise.
mark weston

[BlackHills_Highlander]

from the Black Hills of South Dakota!

[OC Richard]

good morning.
the photo you posted is exactly like what i have minus the knobs on top of the cantle. i will keep researching.
thank you for your insight and expertise.
mark weston

You're welcome!

About the knobs, there's no significance to how many there are. This is due to the various older makers selling the same styles of cantles with no knobs, one knob, or three knobs at random.

There is an interesting tendency for traditional military sporrans to no knobs, sometimes with three knobs for the pipers, while throughout the 20th century there's been an increasing tendency for civilian sporrans to have one knob.

But this isn't a hard-and-fast rule, because earlier in the 20th century civilian sporrans with no knobs and three knobs weren't uncommon, and recently certain military sporrans have only one knob.

In any case your pattern with the lion, cross, and maple leaves would almost certainly have a Canadian connexion.

Thing is, there's been a ton of Canadian Scottish units over the years, including a number which haven't been around for over a century.

For a complete list (16 pages) see

The Uniforms & History of the Scottish Regiments

Major R. Money Barnes

No publication date but from internal evidence it was written just before the 1953 Coronation.

Regiments tend to use similar badges on their various accoutrements, which helps because finding images of all the various cap-badges is far far easier than trying to track down specific sporrans. (There are plenty of regimental sporrans which I know exist, but which not a single image can be found online or in my large book collection.)

As I mentioned the only Canadian regimental cap-badge I could find that had both lion and cross was the long-obsolete Cameron Highlanders of Canada badge.

But in Barnes there's two and a half pages of Canadian Scottish units that were disbanded long ago and finding all their badges might be impossible.

Another difficulty would be if that cantle was only worn by pipers. In a regiment of a thousand men there would only be, at most, a dozen pipers, in the old days. (The British Army only authorised 6 per battalion.)

[Kilted contractor]

Good morning and welcome from Oklahoma

[Canadian Vet]

Thanks for posting those!

As it happens I have run across that pattern sporran a couple times over the years.

Both of the ones I saw had three knobs:



As far as I know it's a civilian pattern. However it looks like the lion and cross are surrounded by maple leafs so it might be a Canadian regiment. The closest I can find is the old-style Cameron Highlanders Of Canada badge which has a lion and cross, and maple leaves

If it was civilian, there were dozens and dozens of different civilian horsehair sporran designs made between c1840 and today.

The heyday of the ornate solid cast German Silver cantles was from around 1880 up till around 1930. So I'd guess somewhere in that time period for your sporran.

Definitely Canadian. Those are unmistaken maple leaves. They were Canadian military insignia/symbols from before there was a Federation called Canada until the new flag was adopted in 1965 and then it literally became a logo.
It's not likely WWI or there would be a Battalion number on it.