Quality Sporrans for less money

**jsrnephdoc** · 18th April 25, 12:35 PM

Originally Posted by OC Richard

I often mention that I'm dismayed when people with little money to spend on their Highland Dress settle for low-quality Pakistani sporrans, when for the same price sporrans made in Scotland, or by L&M in Canada, of the highest quality, can be had for the same price.

We have great people here on XMarks, and great shops, that offer quality sporrans and my intention is not to take away their business.

My intention is to point out times when quality sporrans can be had at low prices, sometimes under $20, often under $50, often under $100. So people on a tight budget need not forgo quality.

I see them all the time on Ebay. Yes Ebay has its faults, and it has its haters. Yes Ebay IMHO favours sellers to some extent. However a smart Ebay buyer can build a high-quality outfit for little money, and what is bad about that? (Well now somebody will probably tell me.) Personally, nearly all of my Highland kit has been acquired on Ebay, quality sporrans, jackets, hose, shoes, etc got for little money.

Ebay buyers must beware! Check the seller's feedback, though feedback doesn't tell the whole story. I look at the item itself, and also get a "feel" about the seller.

I'll focus on traditional Day Dress and Evening Dress sporrans as worn with traditional civilian Highland Dress.

For today I'll start with a sporran ending soon, what has every appearance of being a quality Scottish-made sporran for around $10. Yes there's shipping, which varies upon where in the world the buyer lives.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Scottish-Lea...oAAOSwugtZ08m9

I'm in the dark as to why, but every one of the links I tried took me to an eBay page saying that the link didn't work. Obviously other readers of your post have not had that experience. I'm wondering if anyone has any idea why they don't work for me. The one thing I tried (which didn't help) was replacing the <http://> with <https://>

Maybe it's my browser. I'm on a Mac and using Safari. I refuse to use Chrome.

**User** · 18th April 25, 01:01 PM

Originally Posted by jsrnephdoc

I'm in the dark as to why, but every one of the links I tried took me to an eBay page saying that the link didn't work. Obviously other readers of your post have not had that experience. I'm wondering if anyone has any idea why they don't work for me. The one thing I tried (which didn't help) was replacing the <http://> with <https://>

Maybe it's my browser. I'm on a Mac and using Safari. I refuse to use Chrome.

EBay deletes old listings. Try the most recent links and see if those work for you.

**jsrnephdoc** · 18th April 25, 01:10 PM

Originally Posted by User

EBay deletes old listings. Try the most recent links and see if those work for you.

Thanks! That explains it. I mistakenly tried to link to items listed in one of the first posts in this VERY long thread, which was a LONG time ago in the age of social media

**OC Richard** · 19th April 25, 01:58 AM

I don't know how long Ebay keeps Sold items up, sometimes after something's sold you can still view the listing.

For sure it still can be viewed if you're the one who bought it, but as I recall I can sometimes see a Sold item that somebody else bought for a little while. But you can't open the listing, you just see a thumbnail.

**MacKenzie** · 19th April 25, 09:18 AM

Ebay purchase Nov. 8th... listing is gone.

Ebay purchase Mar. 12th... listing is still there.

**User** · 19th April 25, 09:58 AM

Originally Posted by OC Richard

I don't know how long Ebay keeps Sold items up, sometimes after something's sold you can still view the listing.

For sure it still can be viewed if you're the one who bought it, but as I recall I can sometimes see a Sold item that somebody else bought for a little while. But you can't open the listing, you just see a thumbnail.

You should be able to view the full listing even if you didn't buy it. Ebay seems to have two ways of displaying a sold item. One way is to hide the original listing under a couple rows of other items that are currently for sale. The other is to display only the thumbnail with a link that says "See original listing". If you click the link, the full listing will come up.

**OC Richard** · 26th April 25, 01:06 AM

Here's a WE Scott Edinburgh seal Evening sporran (EW2) with high-quality cantle for under $40.

Interesting how the further you go back in time the nicer the WE Scott sporrans are.

Sad that it's missing a tassel and the seal has seen better days.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/14654209334...Bk9SR-6y7JHOZQ

**OC Richard** · 28th April 25, 01:51 AM

Wow this is one of those goofy things that show up on Ebay from time to time: sporrans which have been cobbled together from random military and/or civilian bits and being sold as something they aren't.

This is being sold as a "Black Watch sporran" while clearly it isn't.

The body is a traditional Cameron Highlanders sporran made by Leckie Graham in 1924. It's wonderful how they stamped dates on their sporrans!

For those into military sporran history this style of Cameron sporran is, AFAIK, the earliest military (non-pipers) sporran to have two long tassels.

All five post-1809 kilted Scottish Highland regiments wore sporrans with either five, or six, short tassels

until the 79th sporran at top appeared, around 1850, as a 79th Foot officers' undress sporran. Later it spread to Sergeants and Other Ranks as their only sporran. (The 78th followed suit with two long tassels around 1870, the 92nd around 1880.)

Back to the Ebay sporran, the cantle is the Black Watch part- well, sort of, it has a Black Watch collar badge on it. The Cameron sporrans had plain black leather cantles. This is the chrome-plated cantle that was introduced in 1968 with the new short horsehair universal sporran for all kilted Scottish Highland regiments. Note how much larger the BW sporran badge is than the collar badge on the Ebay sporran.

The Ebay listing:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/29725041666...Bk9SR5a-ibjPZQ