interesting Seaforth sporran?

[OC Richard]

This is one of the many times where what the Ebay seller describes is different than what I make of it.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/WWI-Seafort...temCondition=4

The sellers says it's a Seaforth Highlanders military sporran, and not only that, but one that has seen service in WWI.

Setting aside the fact that nearly all such Ebay claims lack any provenance, what I see is a nice vintage civilian Day Dress sporran which has had a Seaforth Highlanders officer's cap badge attached.

It's the sort of thing an ex-Army gent might do, to wear with his civilian Highland Dress.

In full knowledge that there were innumerable Volunteer Battalions that had all sorts of irregular kit, I've never seen a military unit use such civilian sporrans, nor can I recall a military unit putting their cap-badge on their sporran.

So just now I did some Googling and I can't find any photos of Seaforth Highlanders officers wearing leather sporrans during WWI. They're either wearing horsehair sporrans, or, usually, no sporrans.

Which raises the possibility that the Seaforths didn't introduce leather sporrans until sometime after WWI.

I found this photo, said to be a Seaforths officer's sporran from WWII. Its badge is a miniature version of the badge which appears on the cantle of the horsehair sporran, similar to the cap badge. I've seen photos of Seaforths sporrans with the elephant collar-badge.



Most interesting, and just the sort of oddity one sees in WWI kit, is this strange leather sporran with huge fringed flap. Just why a private would be wearing this, when I've just looked through a hundred photos of WWI Seaforths from Privates to Colonels with no sporrans at all, who can say.