yet another cool vintage buckle from Ebay

[OC Richard]

I just love the look of vintage buckles and cantles and in the main don't have much use for modern stuff.

I just got the buckle on the upper left a few days ago off Ebay. Like many old buckles (and other Highland stuff including bagpipe mounts) it's of solid German Silver.

It's the style long called "#109" (if anybody knows why, please share!)

For contrast below is a modern chrome version.

On the right is another vintage buckle in "#109" pattern, but 'portrait' rather than 'landscape' orientation

[Theyoungkiltman]

Those are nice! About how old do you think they are?

[OC Richard]

It's hard to say. In The Highlanders of Scotland (1860s) most of the buckles and sporran cantles are made out of sheet metal, and either left plain or engraved.

I don't know when the decorative cast heavy German Silver buckles and cantles became the norm, but photos taken in the late 19th and early 20th century show them overtaking the old style and by the 1920s one rarely sees the old style being offered for sale.

I would guess either of my vintage buckles could date anywhere between the late 19th century and the 1930s.

The army, so often the last bastion of old things, still uses the old-style sheet metal buckles and cantles for several of the crossbelts and/or waistbelts and/or cantles of the various Pipes & Drums. The Pipes & Drums of the Scots Guards are here in California just now and their crossbelt fitments, sporran cantles, and dirks are all fabricated out of plain sheet metal in the old mid-19th century way.

[MacCathmhaoil]

I have one as well Richard, mine tests as coin silver.
image.jpg

[MacCathmhaoil]

I don't think I've ever seen one of these that had either a makers mark or a date/hallmark! They must of been very popular in their time, I knew a lot of older pipers that had them and most had been handed down for a couple of generations so dates were unknown. I think your guess is probably accurate as far as dates go.