History of the plain leather day sporran?

[OC Richard]

You seem to forget that day sporrans, too, had metal cantles. The sporran worn by His Majesty in the photo is different from what you had in mind, but nonetheless is very traditional, with a solid pedigree.

The title of this thread is "history of the plain leather day sporran" and I have taken this to mean the plain leather day sporran, worn with tweed kilt jacket, at least from the 1930's to today in an unbroken continuum, which is a brown leather pocket with flap, usually bearing three tassels.

Pokes, 18th century leather sporrans with metal tops, sporrans like modern "evening" sporrans, animal mask sporrans, etc etc are interesting for sure but are different animals.

Of all the figures in The Highlanders of Scotland, all are wearing long hair sporrans or animal mask sporrans save for three: One man is wearing an antique original 18th century sporran and one is wearing a sporran much like the long hair sporrans but it happens to have short hair (worn by "an unknown Breadalbane man").

Only one has any real resemblance to either the modern evening wear sporran or modern day wear sporran. It's worn by Kenneth MacSwyde and is a smallish short-fur sporran with both a flat metal cantle and a fur flap.

Sticking metal cantles on leather day dress sporrans seems to be rather recent, and by definition could only happen after the day dress sporran per se had evolved.