The 5 Dominant Families Of Scotland

[OC Richard]

There's a Hunting Sporran being sold on Ebay

https://www.ebay.com/itm/sporran-rea...p2056016.l4276

and in the listing the seller states

"The five stripes at the bottom represent the five dominant families in Scotland."

First off, my tendency is to dismiss out of hand all such claims about features of clothing being put there to represent something. The features usually predate the event that they're supposed to represent and/or can be shown to be bogus through other means.

The "five stripes" the seller mentions are the fish-shaped tabs usually seen on Hunting Sporrans in place of tassels.

But is there such a thing as "the five dominant families of Scotland"?

Which families would those be?

[Panache]

But is there such a thing as "the five dominant families of Scotland"?

Which families would those be?

Richard,

The answer is obvious.

Your Clan and the 4 other clans you get along best with...

Cheers

Jamie

[davidlpope]

But is there such a thing as "the five dominant families of Scotland"?

Which families would those be?

I think the seller is plainly wrong, but an interesting thought experiment.

I suggest those families headed by the Dukes of Argyll, Atholl, Montrose, Hamilton/Brandon, and Buccleuch/Queensbury.

[figheadair]

Notwithstanding that the claim is tosh, if it did represent the 5 dominant families one would have to apply a timeframe, otherwise it's a meaningless statement.

[OC Richard]

It does make one wonder where these ideas come from. I'm sure the seller believes it to be fact, but why?

At least it's a break from the usual type of Ebay seller nonsense like the horrible bagpipes made in Pakistan in the 1980s which the seller claims were "recovered from a WWI battlefield". I have seen so many of these claims that it creates a picture of visiting a WWI battlefield years later and finding the ground so strewn with bagpipes that you can hardly walk without stepping on one.

And all the civilian sporrans, often boy's sporrans, which are invariably claimed to be a "military officer's sporran" and usually from "the Boar War".

Just why bagpipes were played a hundred times more commonly in WWI than at any time before or after, and sporrans existed a hundred times more commonly in the Boer War than at any time before or after, are two of life's little mysteries.

[Katia]

It does make one wonder where these ideas come from. I'm sure the seller believes it to be fact, but why?

At least it's a break from the usual type of Ebay seller nonsense like the horrible bagpipes made in Pakistan in the 1980s which the seller claims were "recovered from a WWI battlefield". I have seen so many of these claims that it creates a picture of visiting a WWI battlefield years later and finding the ground so strewn with bagpipes that you can hardly walk without stepping on one.

And all the civilian sporrans, often boy's sporrans, which are invariably claimed to be a "military officer's sporran" and usually from "the Boar War".

Just why bagpipes were played a hundred times more commonly in WWI than at any time before or after, and sporrans existed a hundred times more commonly in the Boer War than at any time before or after, are two of life's little mysteries.

It's just like every violin is an antique and a genuine Stradivarius (a pox upon whoever started to put those "copy of..." labels in violins), every spinning wheel is from 1800 (or earlier), etc.

[OC Richard]

every violin is an antique and a genuine Stradivarius

I have my grandfather's fiddle, it has one of those Stradivarius labels in it.

I found out that back in the 1920s those were made in Chicago and sold for $24...a dozen.

What it was, if you signed up for violin lessons with one of the itinerant violin teachers you pre-paid for a certain number of lessons and the violin was included in the price.

They made and distributed thousands of those $2 Strads, and 9 times out of 10 if you come across an old violin in an antique shop it's one of those.

every spinning wheel is from 1800 (or earlier)

I never heard of the spinning wheel thing, that's funny.

[Katia]

I have my grandfather's fiddle, it has one of those Stradivarius labels in it.

I found out that back in the 1920s those were made in Chicago and sold for $24...a dozen.

What it was, if you signed up for violin lessons with one of the itinerant violin teachers you pre-paid for a certain number of lessons and the violin was included in the price.

They made and distributed thousands of those $2 Strads, and 9 times out of 10 if you come across an old violin in an antique shop it's one of those.

Many makers "copied" Stradivari (or sometimes Guarneri, or Amati, or Stainer, etc.) The labels of some don't actually have the "copy of..." bit. And some don't have a maker's label in addition to the "Stradivarius" label. I suppose you can't blame a person who doesn't know better for getting excited...

[OC Richard]

There's actually a Strad-like thing in the Highland piping world.

If you went back to the time of Stradivarius there would have been dozens of makers, yet every old violin is imagined to be a Strad.

With the Highland pipes it's Henderson. If you go back to the 1890-1920 period there was a large number of pipe makers, yet every old bagpipe is imagined to be a Henderson.

Old pipes that look nothing like Hendersons, old pipes that were made before Peter Henderson was born, they're all imagined to be Hendersons.

It paints the picture of ol' Peter Henderson toiling away at his lathe 18 hours a day, cranking out pipes by the hundreds, while all the other makers were sitting around twiddling their thumbs, cobwebs growing on their lathes.

In fact probably less than half, perhaps a tenth, of the old pipes claimed to be Hendersons actually are.

It would help if the old makers were diligent about marking their pipes, but usually they didn't.