Sporrans 1920s/1930s

[OC Richard]

As people here know I've been collecting vintage Highland Dress catalogues for a while now.

I'm just now taking decent photos of the sporrans in these, and here they are!

I would like for these to be chronological but knowing just when these were published is usually difficult to ascertain.

So here are the sporrans shown in a Fraser Ross catalogue of unknown date. The hairstyles suggest the 1920s. (Fraser Ross inhabited their 60 Ingram St Glasgow address at least from 1909.) In the illustrations of men's Highland Evening Dress both the old-style long hair sporrans and the new small pocketlike sporrans are shown. Day Dress is not illustrated, but this page is obviously intended to show Day sporrans. Note only brown leather sporrans are shown. The two-tassel sporrans are Youth's sporrans.



There's no page of the new-style pocket-shaped sealskin Evening sporrans, only this page of hair sporrans:





This Lawrie catalogue can be inferred to be from around 1931. They only have one illustration of sporrans. 056 is horse hair, 060 is goat hair, 057 sealskin, 058 "leather", 059 "white buckskin". The long hair sporrans are available with either engraved mounts or "chased raised design" mounts (most likely cast German Silver). The Evening sporran with a Clan crest badge is interesting, as Clan crest things weren't very popular at that time (Clan crest kilt pins were rare for example).



This Anderson catalogue dates from 1936 or shortly thereafter. Here are their Evening Sporrans, all sealskin.

Number 1 "antique brass top" while the rest have silver tops as one would expect.



And their Day Sporrans. Number 11 is "otter with tooled pigskin" and 12 "otter". Numbers 13, 15, 16, and 17 are pigskin, numbers 14 and 18 buckskin, 19 "leather", and 20 "calfskin". Number 16 is called "hunting" and number 20 is called "Rob Roy".



Here's the only catalogue I have that has a date! Rowans LTD Glasgow.

Inside the front cover there's a sticker saying "This catalogue was printed in 1938- with the result that prices quoted therein are considerably less and those prevailing to-day. Apart altogether from increased costs of material and labour, purchase tax has to be taken into consideration."

Here are "Men's Sporrans for Evening and Full Dress Wear", all sealskin except Number 44 "Ocelot" and all have sterling silver or silverplate tops.



Interesting the straps on Number 46. (In the Paisley catalogue they're stated to be seal.)



Here are "Men's Sporrans for Day Wear". Number 51 "Rob Roy", 52 Fox, 53 Otter, 54, 55, and 56 all Pigskin. Note once again that only brown sporrans are worn for Day.



To round up the 1930s is this Paisleys LTD Glasgow catalogue from 1939. I have the same catalogue from 1936 but it only illustrates boy's sporrans. Actually the catalogues themselves have no date, each has a separate price list booklet which fits into a pocket on the back over. This one says "revised September 1939" and there's a sticker saying "Prices Advanced 20%" indicating a period of rapid inflation.

This photo is captioned "Men's Sporrans for Evening and Everyday Wear".

Numbers 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, and 9 sealskin with silverplated tops, Number 5 with "Seal Strands", Number 4 Hogskin, Number 6 "leather", Number 8 Otter.