What do you normally carry in your day sporran?

[Touchstone]

I like to think its a show of wealth. I've seen photos of men from the American "old west" that have their pistol and Bowie knife in the same position. Displaying one's prized possessions front and center like that is a statement. In kind of the same way an oversized opulent codpiece was.
Wearing a sporran in the front and center position, I feel, came about out of practicality. wearing a pouch on your hip tends to get in the way of your arms, if its heavy loads your body in an unbalanced way. Another thing to note is that when a pouch is on your hip you can't really look into it without contorting your body or removing the pouch. A centrally located sporran solves all of that. Loading the hips uniformly, not really in the way of anything, gives a view into it to find the contents. Just my two cents as a guy that's worn a lot of things on his belt.

I'm definitely on board with the "show of wealth" explanation for the weaponry. I just can't see having those long items jabbing into the front of your thighs (or worse) all the time.

The sporran's a different matter. I find that managing a hip pouch becomes second nature when you do it habitually, rather like managing all that fabric in a great kilt. As (I think) Anne the Pleater noted, that fabric gets in the way when you're dealing with specific circumstances such as sitting in narrow armchairs - and so does a pouch - but otherwise they're not cumbersome. In combat, too, I suppose, and if your sporran served as your ammo pouch, you'd want it handy. (Admittedly, I can't speak with authority on the subject of combat.)

(I recall a few posts here where people have noted the circumstances when they've pushed a sporran off to the side under special circumstances. So I suppose it cuts both ways.)

All that said, I can see that it does make sense that a pouch might migrate to front-and-center. I can normally find everything in my pouch by touch (and medieval folk would have had a lot fewer items in the pouch - by the way, Jock Scot, sorry for hijacking the conversation). But I sometimes swing it around to the front to if I have to fumble in it. And if I have multiple things hanging from my belt, some of them (like a coin pouch) do end up around front. It's less vulnerable in front, as well (safer from pickpockets for one thing, although that reasoning may not apply to the circumsances Highlanders typically found themselves in).

[Crazy Dave]

I carry a wallet, keys and phone, but I don't have a big phone like many people carry. I have the smallest iPhone. No problem with comfort since I took the recommendation of this form and wear my sporran high. I had to make extra holes in the belts to do this even though I'm not a thin man. When I go for long hikes I wear the sporran on my side like a drummer.

[Jock Scot]

Touchstone.

No worries my dear chap, the conversation is almost bound to stray off course as they inevitably do from time to time, usually though the conversation finds its way back after time. Besides, I was enjoying the diversion!

[Ninehostages]

"I'm definitely on board with the "show of wealth" explanation for the weaponry"

So, perhaps the sporran is a development from the Medieval Codpiece?

[Father Bill]

"I'm definitely on board with the "show of wealth" explanation for the weaponry"

So, perhaps the sporran is a development from the Medieval Codpiece?

Nae. My sense of the thing is that a lot of men and women in those times carried a scrip hung from a belt or cincture for carrying their wee necessities.

...and un-necessities, much as we do today.

[MacKenzie]

My sense of the thing is that a lot of men and women in those times carried a scrip hung from a belt or cincture for carrying their wee necessities.

I guess I've always assumed (without really thinking about it too much) the same thing.

Frontiersmen on this continent didn't have pockets in their "buckskins", so they carried a "possibles bag". I figure the sporran's origins are nothing more than that.

[Touchstone]

Touchstone.

No worries my dear chap, the conversation is almost bound to stray off course as they inevitably do from time to time, usually though the conversation finds its way back after time. Besides, I was enjoying the diversion!

You are gracious as always, sir.

[Wowbagger427]

I have a nice "Tactical Sporran" from Stillwater Kilts. Black ballistic nylon, multi-chambered, nice stuff. And, in it are what would normally be in pants pockets. If I'm wearing a jacket/vest there is some load re-balancing. Leather day sporran or a full-dress sporran won't be as full.
Keys; slimmed down wallet; mobile; coin bladder (yeah, one of those plastic egg-shaped jobs for coin); handkerchief; the other knife; chapstick...

[Ninehostages]

I have a nice "Tactical Sporran" from Stillwater Kilts. Black ballistic nylon, multi-chambered, nice stuff. And, in it are what would normally be in pants pockets. If I'm wearing a jacket/vest there is some load re-balancing. Leather day sporran or a full-dress sporran won't be as full.
Keys; slimmed down wallet; mobile; coin bladder (yeah, one of those plastic egg-shaped jobs for coin); handkerchief; the other knife; chapstick...

Careful that you keep the "safety" on inside your tactical sporran or you'll end up singing Soprano.

[OC Richard]

That's actually what I'm getting at. It's not to say this this is a deception. I'm not even saying that the Lord Duffus didn't wear his accessories and weaponry down the front. I'm only saying that portraying him in his day-to-day state of dress mightn't be the point of this portrait, and it's worth pausing before drawing any conclusions about "the way it was done".

Exactly. We can't know how he wore things at any other point in time in his life; all we know is how he wore things for the specific purpose of having that portrait painted.

Any guesses or assumptions we might make about how he wore things at other points in time have no legs to stand on.