Quality Sporrans for less money

[OC Richard]

Yes from the front they all look the same.

From the back we see that the top three are by Nicoll Brothers Bankfoot.

Bottom left is by WE Scott Edinburgh.

Bottom second-left looks rather older than the rest, possibly 1950s, and could be by any Scottish maker.

Bottom right and second-right look Pakistani to me. If so, the casting quality of the cantles would be inferior to the high-quality cantles on the Scottish-made sporrans, but this could only be seen up close.

[OC Richard]

An interesting fur Evening sporran by L&M Highland (Nova Scotia) for a very low price.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/22595977800...Bk9SR473vbekYw

[Father Bill]

An interesting fur Evening sporran by L&M Highland (Nova Scotia) for a very low price.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/22595977800...Bk9SR473vbekYw

Lovely indeed, but as an officer in Scottish Rite, there is no connection whatever that I can see despite the label.

[OC Richard]

Lovely indeed, but as an officer in Scottish Rite, there is no connection whatever that I can see despite the label.

Yes Ebay sellers have fanciful descriptions fairly often.

One frequently amusing thing is how any sporran, be it military, civilian, or even child-sized, will be listed as a "military officer's sporran". (There were evidently some very small officers back then!)

The fad has pretty much gone away, but for a while every old moth-eaten civilian Highland jacket or kilt or sporran was being listed as a "Boer War officer's ____".

Just why dozens of Boer War officer's things survived for everything from some other war, or rank, remains a mystery.

[OC Richard]

Sadly "may not post to the USA" but a high-quality older Scott & Son seal sporran.

It has the higher-grade silverplate cantle made in five separate pieces (the three bosses are screwed on).

The fact that is has the back of the cantle scored across forming a sort of leather hinge, a feature of the original 1953 Patent sporrans, yet lacks the Patent stamp, helps date it.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/395140991...ndition=4%7C10

[Hauge]

Sadly "may not post to the USA" but a high-quality older Scott & Son seal sporran.

It has the higher-grade silverplate cantle made in five separate pieces (the three bosses are screwed on).

The fact that is has the back of the cantle scored across forming a sort of leather hinge, a feature of the original 1953 Patent sporrans, yet lacks the Patent stamp, helps date it.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/395140991...ndition=4%7C10

A real beauty!

But, as seller won't send to Denmark either, my guess is, it's a UK only sale?

[Troglodyte]

A real beauty!

But, as seller won't send to Denmark either, my guess is, it's a UK only sale?

Posting from the UK to Europe has become very problematic since Brexit.

My own experience of sending items has been more than enough to 'black-list' European countries, as the EU now regards Britain in the same light as African countries.

I recently sent a rather splendid vitage kilt to Holland, using tracked and insured Royal Mail international service. The package left Aberdeen the same day, and the tracking showed it had arrived at its destination in Amsterdam the following morning - what I would expect for normal service.

The package was then held for 28 days by Dutch Customs.

Both the recipient and I challenged the Dutch postal servce over this, and were both told the same thing - since Brexit, Customs have been instructed to hold items from the UK for the maximum time. Brexit has to be seen as a failure, you see.

On the 29th day, the kilt was released and delivered as it should have been, but both me as the sender from Scotland, and the recipient in Europe were seething over this idiotic spite by officialdom.

Ebay has its own rules and timescales for delivery, and the 'rights' of the customer now make it very unattractive to sell internationally from the UK. Perhaps the seller of this sporran has already had experience of international selling, and thinks never again...

My experience of sending items from the UK to both Canada and the US are very favourable - to Canada it is much quicker and cheeper (by almost 50 per cent) and US Customs seems to process their through-put very slowly. Two to three weeks is what I expect a package to take to get to North America, but it can take much longer and often does.

Please do not blame the seller in these matters..!

[Tomo]

I guess it varies - I regularly ship stuff from the UK to Estonia.

I have not experienced deliberate delays at customs (in fact I have them very helpful) but there are always some costs (VAT needs to be paid on pretty much anything over 45 Euro, including the shipping costs - and there may be additional duty and admin fees) and the customs declarations can be a pain (I still have to do a declaration on this side - even if the "exporter" has already done this in the UK).

So it's better for me to either buy in the EU or if I buy in the UK have things sent to my folks and collect it next time I am back to avoid the cost (sometime more than the items themselves) and the hassle of making the declarations and trying to find the right tariff codes.

[Hauge]

Regarding sending to EU.

A couple of Years ago EU made a VAT wall. If a citizen inside EU buy from outside, they are to pay VAT of post plus the value of the goods.
This can be done in two ways. One is to pay via the customs services. This by getting a VAT note to declare before the goods are sent to receiver.
The other is to pay to the seller, Who then pay to a IOSS central, and get a IOSS number, to put on the packet.
In the last case, sending from UK to EU is swift. Although it give the seller more work.

OFC there's always possibilities for error. I bought a packet, via ebay, last year. Paid VAT via them, and had a lot of troubles.
Seller had forgotten to declare or label with the IOSS number. So after nearly three months, i had to file a refund. - This after hours of calling and writing back and forth...

As a customer, from Denmark, an example.

You buy a sporran for £80, and another £20 post.

If the IOSS system is used, the calc would be:
(£80 + £20) + 25% VAT = £125 total

If no IOSS used:
((£80 + £20) + 25%) + declaration at approx. £17 so = £142 total

If no IOSS via ebay:
((£80 +£20) + 25%) plus another 25% VAT and £17 declaration. So = £173,25

And in the last case you can TRY to get ebay to pay the 25% VAT back (they have added). (Good luck!)

Yeah. If something can be difficult, it seems it shall be! Hmm...

[OC Richard]

Being in the US it's disappointing when UK sellers won't ship here.

Seeing the USA listed amongst Third World Nations is a bit odd and unsettling.

But as someone who has sold a number of things over the years on Ebay, and who has had some nightmarish experiences, I don't blame any seller who wants to make the selling process smoother for themselves.

Things generally come from the UK and the EU quickly, and it's been 20 years since US Customs pounced on a package coming to me and held it for ransom.

I ordered a musical instrument from a maker in Germany and it arrived in four days. (Tracking showed that within hours of him posting it in Germany it was on a direct flight to Los Angeles International Airport; the day after it landed at LAX it was in our local postal hub, and the day after that it appeared on my doorstep.)

Likewise a kilt I ordered from an Edinburgh maker got here a week after it was completed.

Contrast those to the package I'm still waiting on from New York! Two days after the seller posted it the package arrived at the post office in my town. Then it was inexplicably sent to another town a few miles away, and thence to Texas! (It's 1,500 miles away, and over halfway back to New York.)