Quote Originally Posted by The Scotsman View Post
Richard, being something of a sporran historian as it were, when do you think that the seal became the default animal for providing skins for sporrans? I know that sealskin sporrans were quite unknown throughout the 19th century when everyone was wearing goat's hair or horsehair; and though they are mentioned along with animals such as badger, otter, fox, pine marten and wildcat, as one of the choice available for sporrans in the early years of the 20th century, no one seems to have been wearing them very much during the Edwardian period. So when did the day of the sealskin sporran first dawn? Was it the 1920's? the 1930's? or slightly later?
"Sporran Historian" ! I suppose so... I just bought a nice Victorian cantle on Ebay the other day... one just can't have enough Victorian and Edwardian sporrans!

Anyhow, sealskin was common in the late 18th and early 19th century:



But then it looks like the style changed, and everyone started going for long hair, goathair initially it seems.

By the 1830's all the regiments had gone over to long hair:



In The Highlanders of Scotland sealskin doesn't appear, as far as I can see. There is one guy wearing a mid-18th century sporran and one guy wearing an early 19th century sporran. These would have been 100 years old and 50 years old at the time (1860s).

As far as I can verify, it wasn't until around 1900 or so until the long hair sporrans fell out of favour and were replaced by new (or revived) styles.

For "outdoor wear" it was a pocket with a flap. My present theory is that these may have started in the early 20th century Army, but I have little evidence.

This pocket-with-flap could also be made of seal.

Here they are in a catalogue from the 1930's.



But the most common seal sporran was made in vague imitation of an 18th century sporran, with a curved cantle. However this was a nonfunctional decorative cantle, not the fully functioning hinged 18th century cantle.

Here's an interesing catalogue from the 1930's showing a reproduction 18th century sporran for day wear, and the new evening dress sporran: