Never worn vintage sporrans

[Troglodyte]

Every now and then, I chance across an unworn sporran of some vintage.

These are usually the run-of-the-mill type of leather day-wear sporran, or the familiar fur and metal cantle evening dress sort, and I can resist the temptation.

Occasionally I will happen upon something a bit more rare and interesting, such as the 1920s thong-through studded flap and broguing pattern front panel all-leather job, or the pair of Gordon Highlanders' officer's hair sporran and brass cantle 'Culloden' style with blanco'd bag and with blank issue-consignment tags still attached.

Now, I make no claims to being a sporran collector, but I seem to have accumulated about 40 or 50 over time, and the bulk have had no, or little use. And, as they date from about the 1890s onwards, this intrigues me.

Why never worn..?

My guess is that a kiltie goes and buys his rigoot, with jacket options and maybe a sporran for evening wear and one for Highland Games duty. He goes to a couple of Burns' Night dinners, never gets to any Games, and that's that.

The next thing we know, I am passing a junk-shop window and there is a sporran begging to be bought, or it's forming part of a mixed auction lot. These two Nicoll Bros' and the '20s sporrans came to me exactly that way.



Now, Nicolls went out of business 20 years or so ago, so for the best part of this century, these two sporrans have been languishing somewhere. The same is true for the '20s sporran, but after 100 years or so, you would expect it to show at least some signs of wear.

I mean, wouldn't you wear it with more than a bit of pride?

The two Nicoll sporrans are of a kind, being cut using the same templates and constructed in the same way, but are otherwise unconnected. The brown 'regimental purse' was an impulse buy this past weekend, on seeing it for sale in an antique shop window in the tourist-town of Ballater for the no-quibble price of £28. I would expect to see more asked on eBay. The black fur-front one I have had for a fair while.

So the situation as I see it is this. There are either a few kilties out there like me, who have a good selection of choice sporrans but tend to use only one or two regularly, whose stash makes it to open market after they die. Or there is a glut of new-old-stock waiting to be snapped-up, only I'm unaware of it.

Whatever, it shows that there is a good selection of vintage sporrans out there - some never worn - and if that's your thing, chances are you will get lucky soon.