HRH Prince Charles at Highland Games

[Troglodyte]

Despite the Covid effect of the Highland Games, with cancellations for the second year running and the like, this serves to give us a taste of what we've been missing...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL06ZAAOFOQ

And there's tis, too...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWbMSIWXnyA

[Jock Scot]

It’s nice to see some sort of social normality has returned to the Highlands. I could not help but notice that black shoes with the kilt were, almost, the choice of everyone. Black sporrans were quite common and brown sporrans were worn happily with black shoes. All perfectly normal attire choices and life goes on.

[OC Richard]

It began dawning on me, as I collected more vintage period photos, vintage catalogues, and saw more and more surviving vintage sporrans, that I can't recall coming across a leather Day Dress sporran made in black prior to around 1970.

Even a couple catalogues I have from the 1960s don't offer, picture, or mention anything other than brown.

True that one of the numerous shades of brown offered, going all the way back to the beginnings of our 20th century Day Dress sporrans, was a quite dark brown.

The military leather sporrans were usually in that very dark brown. Sometime, perhaps as early as the 1960s, soldiers began colouring their issued brown sporrans black, and around 1980 the army began issuing hideous glossy black vinyl sporrans. Happily the Royal Regiment of Scotland has returned to the traditional dark brown leather.

My theory is that the civilian black Day Dress sporrans were introduced by the kilt hire industry as a cheaper accompaniment to the ubiquitous black Prince Charlie and Argyll. At the same time sporranmakers began taking bits from Evening sporrans (like the cantle plate from the Prince Charlie seal Evening sporran, and Evening sporran ball & chain tassels) and sticking them on black leather Day sporrans to create the newfangled "semi-dress" sporrans.

In any case I'd love to see vintage period photos or period mentions of vintage black leather civilian Day sporrans. With surviving vintage sporrans there's almost never airtight provenance due to only sporrans with Sterling cantles bearing date marks.

[Jock Scot]

It began dawning on me, as I collected more vintage period photos, vintage catalogues, and saw more and more surviving vintage sporrans, that I can't recall coming across a leather Day Dress sporran made in black prior to around 1970.

Even a couple catalogues I have from the 1960s don't offer, picture, or mention anything other than brown.

True that one of the numerous shades of brown offered, going all the way back to the beginnings of our 20th century Day Dress sporrans, was a quite dark brown.

The military leather sporrans were usually in that very dark brown. Sometime, perhaps as early as the 1960s, soldiers began colouring their issued brown sporrans black, and around 1980 the army began issuing hideous glossy black vinyl sporrans. Happily the Royal Regiment of Scotland has returned to the traditional dark brown leather.

My theory is that the civilian black Day Dress sporrans were introduced by the kilt hire industry as a cheaper accompaniment to the ubiquitous black Prince Charlie and Argyll. At the same time sporranmakers began taking bits from Evening sporrans (like the cantle plate from the Prince Charlie seal Evening sporran, and Evening sporran ball & chain tassels) and sticking them on black leather Day sporrans to create the newfangled "semi-dress" sporrans.

In any case I'd love to see vintage period photos or period mentions of vintage black leather civilian Day sporrans. With surviving vintage sporrans there's almost never airtight provenance due to only sporrans with Sterling cantles bearing date marks.

My only sporran is black. My Grand Father used to wear a black Sporran as his every day sporran, made from a crocodile that he had shot "out East" in the 1920's/30's. I still see it occasionally at family gatherings. I have to confess a wee spark of jealousy, on occasion, when I see it. No one comments about the colour but some of the younger generation huff and puff a bit over the moral and conservation aspect of it. However asking them about the cow/pig/horse/deer that they are wearing in shoe, belt and sporran form, usually causes them to think rather harder about what they say.

I have and do criticise the kilt hire industry on many issues , but I am not at all sure that they can be accused of bringing black sporrans to the fore. Are black sporrans common in my experience? No. Are black sporrans unusual in traditional kilt circles? Well no.

[DCampbell16B]

I have three sporrans. I got my first in the mid-70s. It was a simple brown day sporran with a brown strap, probably from the British Shop in Buffalo, and by mail. And the first thing I did with it was get my black leather dye and dye it black. I still have it, and I still prefer it that way. Nothing to do with the kilt hire industry though. It didn't exist anywhere I could conceivably even be influenced by it.