OK, so I was having a conversation elsewhere on the interweb, and someone posted a photo of a man from around 1885 who was wearing his pocket watch chain with the T-bar exposed in the front. In other words, he had fed it into the buttonhole from behind and the T-bar was on the outside, with the chain coming out from behind the waistcoat panel. I commented that I'd never seen it worn that way, and that I was pretty sure they were meant to be worn the other way around, with the T-bar on the inside and the chain coming out of the buttonhole.

But then I was shown more historical photos of men with the T-bars on the outside. And sure enough, when I looked at some of my photos of Highlanders, they did it too! I had never noticed this before. So now I've gone back and tried to find photos of some of the better-dressed X-Markers to see what they're doing, and I see that there's still no universal convention on this. I, and several others, wear the T-bar hidden on the inside.

So is there any sort of convention on this, or is it just personal preference? I must admit, seeing the T-bar on the outside looks sort of wrong to me. These are not overly decorative pieces, and appear to be mostly built for function, which tells me that they were designed to be hidden. But the prevalence of fully exposed T-bars in historical photos tells me that I could, quite possibly, be wrong about that. Perhaps even willing to change.

Here are some Highlander examples: