This thread has what I call the "canon of traditional sporran styles" which has come down to us from the early 20th century.
http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...xamples-88489/
It might be useful to look over that thread, because all of those styles, with very few exceptions, are early 20th century inventions.
Not a single sporran, of those dozens of styles, are appropriate for 19th century Highland Dress, save for the animal mask one.
The only other ones that are close, the long horsehair ones, are still different enough from 19th century sporrans so as to be inappropriate.
For some unknown reason small pocket-shaped sporrans, brown pigskin for Day and sealskin for Evening, swept into Highland Dress in the first quarter of the 20th century and replaced the long goathair sporrans which had been standard for both Day and Evening dress throughout the 19th century.
So for a Civil War Ball it would have to be a long goathair sporran regardless, with a silver or German Silver cantle. Brass wouldn't do in the Evening, and in fact brass cantles were virtually nonexistent in the 19th century, being a mid-18th century style which was revived in the early 20th century.
Here are some sporran representative of what would have been worn in the mid-19th century for Evening Dress.
This is a long goathair sporran. Typical of the period is having the cantle fabricated out of sheet metal (Sterling silver, or German Silver) because the heavy cast German Silver cantles (often silverplated) didn't take over until after 1900.
This is the overall look of a mid-19th century long hair Evening Dress sporran:
The best overview of 1860s sporrans, both in contemporary paintings and in the flesh (surviving antique examples) is this thread
http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...s-flesh-83376/
Last edited by OC Richard; 6th January 16 at 08:16 PM.
Proud Mountaineer from the Highlands of West Virginia; son of the Revolution and Civil War; first Europeans on the Guyandotte
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