Evening Sporran styles

[OC Richard]

Starting, it seems, in the 1920s the small rounded seal-fur sporran with silver top began overtaking the traditional Victorian long white hair sporran with silver top, for Evening Dress.

William Elder Scott started a sporranmaking business in Edinburgh in 1937. I currently think that the numbering system used for many years by various makers and seen in a number of catalogues was created at some point by WE Scott & Son.

This numbering system makes a convenient shorthand for identifying and discussing many hundreds of sporrans made from the 1920s through today. The system is not entirely linear or logical! But here goes.

Evening Wear sporrans are designated EW followed by a number. The categories usually are defined by the cantle style.

EW1 refers to this cantle style. The sporrans were usually seal, and the cantle could be solid nickel, silverplate, or less often brass. I've included in this collage a Hunting Sporran (HS) using a brass version of the EW1 cantle.

Lower right is an unusual all-flat variant.



EW2 was this quite common cantle, which appears in some early catalogues.

It was seal, and generally had cones on the tassels.

The cantle was often silverplate, of very high quality, made in five separate pieces screwed together.

A lower-quality nickel or chrome-plated two-piece cantle is also seen.



EW3 was the pierced version of the EW2 cantle, often also silverplate in five pieces.

It's seen in nickel, silverplate, chrome-plated, and solid brass, in 5-piece and 2-piece versions.



EW4 is not entirely clear.

The designation appears to originally been to distinguish EW2 style sporrans made in white fur rather than grey seal.

EW4 also seems to have been used over the years for various furs like musquash, rabbit, mink, etc.

There was a fad in the 1950s and 1960s for artificial fur, not felt at that time to be inferior to real fur, it seems. These also were generally put under the EW4 umbrella.

EW4/A/T is the designation for the style with a leather targe. I believe this style to have emerged in the 1970s possibly for Kilt Hire. I've not seen any vintage EW4/A/T sporrans, only new ones.



EW5 is another style that goes back to the 1920s at least. The cantle has the ancient "bullseye" or "goddess-eye" motif and, yes, the sporrans generally have five tassels.

The cantle is seen in silverplate, nickel, and brass.