Traditional Sporrans Catalogue

[OC Richard]

(Due to my cancelling my Photobucket account I will be recreating this old photo-heavy thread.)

Back when I first got into kiltwearing, in the mid-1970s, I got my hands on a couple Highland Dress catalogues, and I noticed that they used the same photos showing available sporrans styles. The sporrans were grouped on a number of pages, and each sporran had a curious code designation.

Then in the 1980s I began working at a Highland Outfitter who carried sporrans by William Scott & Son, Edinburgh, who provided us with a tri-fold photo-spread showing the styles they made... it was the same photos.

Later we were sent and/or acquired price lists from several other Scottish sporran makers all of whom sent us the same tri-fold photo-spread.

I would be most interested to find out who originally shot those photos, and when. I have been told that those same photos appeared in catalogues in the 1960s. Regardless of who or when, it was clear that that tri-fold of sporran styles represented the standard styles made by several makers, representing a canon of sorts.

In addition, most of those Scottish sporran makers didn't stamp their names on their products, rather, regardless of maker all the sporrans had an oval stamp on the back of the sporran which read Real Leather Made In Scotland.

Most of those same styles are still in production, by Scottish makers, L&M in Canada (keeping going the tradition of high-quality sporrans) and also in Pakistan (generally of much lower quality).

Here are the pages of that tri-fold photo-spread, with examples of the sporrans shown, some by William Scott & Son, Edinburgh, some by Nicoll Brothers, Bankfoot, and many others unknown.

The first page, Evening Dress sporrans (sealskin)



Here is EW1 with the cast relief cantle usually seen nowadays



Here's an older EW1, the cantle appears to be silverplate



Here's an old EW1 from Scott with a slightly different cantle



EW4 had a quality cantle made of four pieces, the cantle and the three bosses, all silverplate.



Here is a vintage EW4 with cones on the tassels



Here are examples of EW6G and EW4G, the "G" referring to the cantle with the huge boss:





EW4/5, having five tassels



This example has odd tassels which I've not seen elsewhere



Centre bottom is HS/T/B (which I believe means Hunting Sporran/Top/Black) here in brown. In black, with a chrome top, this has become the standard Pipe Band sporran the world over. Note this originally had the EW1 cantle; nowadays this sporran is usually made with the EW3 (pierced version of EW4) cantle.