Seal skin sporrans?

[Andrew M. Stewart]

Does anyone know when the ban takes effect? I'm wondering if L&M are going to keep making them since they are based in Canada.

[McMurdo]

A quick google search tells me it's in effect, perhaps you should contact L&M regarding this.

[OC Richard]

I guess you're talking about a Canadian ban? They've been banned in the USA for decades. What about Scotland?

It was interesting when, in the 1980's, I visited a sporranmaker in Scotland who had a closet full of badger pelts which he could not use because they were banned in Scotland, though sealskin was perfectly fine (and still is, as far as I know).

Even the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders began getting their badger sporrans from North America (I could tell because the faces of British badgers and North American badgers look quite different.)

[auld argonian]

Just as an aside, I remember a lot of references to sealskin coats being popular back in the early part of the twentieth century...I'm trying to find some references that will give me a more specific timeline but they're just not popping out. Just thought that it would help date the point at which the fur became popular.

Best

AA

[Lallans]

Based on simple observation, sealskin has indeed been banned in the US for some time now. The EU supposedly has agreed to allow the import of sealskin from native bands in Canada, on the stated 'moral' basis that they are practically the sole source of earned income possible for said bands, but the same native bands are now starting to ban the import of European wine, and also scotch whiskey, into their areas, as a real but also symbolic protest against the EU's real-world boycott of the sealskin product- allegedly the EU countries are not actually allowing imports as they agreed. Perhaps if native children had as big brown eyes as the seals do....

Since we do like to see our own people live in dignity, it is highly unlikely that sealskin products will ever be banned in Canada.

[ccga3359]

Just as an aside, I remember a lot of references to sealskin coats being popular back in the early part of the twentieth century...I'm trying to find some references that will give me a more specific timeline but they're just not popping out. Just thought that it would help date the point at which the fur became popular.

Best

AA

Can't give a time line but can say it is for insulation purposes. Inuit wouldn't be caught dead outside without wearing seal skin. The time you give, of course, predates synthetic insulating materials but even the modern materials don't hold a candle to seal skin clothing. This has nothing to do with the use of seal skin for sporrans. Perhaps it's because you can get quite a lot of sporrans from one seal pelt, you'd need about 3 - 4 decent sized haggis to make just one sporran.. McMurdo brough comparitively looking sporrans to a kilt night once bovine and seal skin. The bovine had quite course fur whereas the seal was so soft.

[Highland Logan]

Inuit wouldn't be caught dead outside without wearing seal skin.

I was in the Artic (Baffin Island) in '92 as part of a sovereignty excercise with the CF. I can say with some certainty that unless a film crew is filming, only the older generation wear seal, the rest wear modern stuff, not that it's better.

Frank

[OC Richard]

Richard, being something of a sporran historian as it were, when do you think that the seal became the default animal for providing skins for sporrans? I know that sealskin sporrans were quite unknown throughout the 19th century when everyone was wearing goat's hair or horsehair; and though they are mentioned along with animals such as badger, otter, fox, pine marten and wildcat, as one of the choice available for sporrans in the early years of the 20th century, no one seems to have been wearing them very much during the Edwardian period. So when did the day of the sealskin sporran first dawn? Was it the 1920's? the 1930's? or slightly later?

"Sporran Historian" ! I suppose so... I just bought a nice Victorian cantle on Ebay the other day... one just can't have enough Victorian and Edwardian sporrans!

Anyhow, sealskin was common in the late 18th and early 19th century:



But then it looks like the style changed, and everyone started going for long hair, goathair initially it seems.

By the 1830's all the regiments had gone over to long hair:



In The Highlanders of Scotland sealskin doesn't appear, as far as I can see. There is one guy wearing a mid-18th century sporran and one guy wearing an early 19th century sporran. These would have been 100 years old and 50 years old at the time (1860s).

As far as I can verify, it wasn't until around 1900 or so until the long hair sporrans fell out of favour and were replaced by new (or revived) styles.

For "outdoor wear" it was a pocket with a flap. My present theory is that these may have started in the early 20th century Army, but I have little evidence.

This pocket-with-flap could also be made of seal.

Here they are in a catalogue from the 1930's.



But the most common seal sporran was made in vague imitation of an 18th century sporran, with a curved cantle. However this was a nonfunctional decorative cantle, not the fully functioning hinged 18th century cantle.

Here's an interesing catalogue from the 1930's showing a reproduction 18th century sporran for day wear, and the new evening dress sporran:

[Andrew M. Stewart]

The ban hasn't taken effect yet as all of the Scottish companies selling sporrans that I've looked are still selling them. The ban includes existing stock. Seals are about the most un-endangered species out there.

[Lallans]

Now I'm wondering if there is some new ban I haven't hear of in effect- or looming or something. Can you share any such info, AMS?