The Possibles Bag: Frontier Origins, Modern Uses, and How to Build Your Own

A possibles bag is the original everyday-carry. A small leather shoulder bag with a single flap, a single strap, and inside it everything a working trapper needed to get through a day in country far from any store. Lead balls, patches, flint, fire kit, jerky, awl, thread, maybe a small folding knife, maybe a horn cup. Whatever the day might possibly require.

The form is old and has barely changed, and leatherworkers still build them on the old patterns. If you have ever owned a small leather shoulder bag and packed it full of small items you needed to keep dry and to hand, you have owned a descendant of this object whether you knew it or not.

What was actually in one

A working possibles bag in 1830 carried a predictable kit. The variation was in the maker’s preference and the trapper’s habits, not the function. The standard load looked something like:

• Shooting kit. A bag of round lead balls (typically .53 or .54 caliber for a Hawken), a pre-cut stack of greased linen patches, a vent pick, a turnscrew, a spare flint, and patch ticking or extra cloth for cutting more.
• Fire kit. Char cloth or punk wood in a small tin, a flint and steel striker, and tinder (dried grass, birch bark scrapings, or commercially-prepared tow).
• Tools. A small awl, sometimes hafted in antler. A bone or brass needle case. A few feet of waxed sinew or linen thread. A small whetstone.
• Edible. Jerky, parched corn, or pemmican wrapped in oilcloth. Sometimes coffee beans in a small bag for the mid-day brew.
• Personal. A folding knife or small fixed-blade for tasks the larger belt knife was too big for. Sometimes a clay pipe and a twist of tobacco. Often a horn cup tied to the outside.

The powder horn rode separately on its own strap. Loose powder in a cloth bag was a recipe for losing a hand. The horn was always external; the bag was for the things that did not blow up.

How they were built

The basic construction is simple and consistent: a front and back panel cut from medium-weight vegetable-tanned leather, with a separate gusset to give the bag depth. The flap was cut as part of the back panel and folded over, fastened with a brass buckle and tongue, a wooden toggle, or just a thong tie depending on the maker.

The strap was usually cut from the same hide as the bag and sized to the wearer.

Inside, a bag might carry small pockets sewn to the front panel, sized to hold a specific tool: a turnscrew, an awl, a flint.

Stitching was by hand, with two needles and waxed thread in a saddle stitch. Brass or copper-alloy hardware had the advantage of not rusting onto the contents.

Why the design stuck

The possibles bag survived as a recognizable object across two hundred years of changing technology because the fundamental problem it solves has not changed. People who work outdoors in rough country still need to carry a small set of essentials in something that:

1. Rides against the body without bouncing. A single short strap worn cross-body is the optimal configuration for walking, riding, and bending. Two-strap packs are better for heavy loads but worse for constant access; pockets are too small. The single-strap shoulder bag is the right answer for ten to fifteen pounds of small items you reach into all day.

2. Closes against weather. A flap with a buckle or thong sheds rain and snow and opens without the rasp of a zipper.

3. Repairs in the field. A leather bag with brass hardware can be stitched, patched, or cut down with the same tools the contents include. A synthetic bag with a broken zipper is trash.

4. Lasts. Vegetable-tanned leather with brass hardware, kept oiled, can outlive its owner.

The form is a piece of design that arrived at its near-final shape early and has had no reason to evolve.

Modern uses

The possibles bag has three living traditions today.

The first is muzzleloader shooting. Black-powder hunters and target shooters in the National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association still use possibles bags in close to original form, because the kit a flintlock or caplock requires is the same kit it required in 1830. Modern makers serving muzzleloader shooters are easy to find, Tandy Leather sells the components, and small custom shops turn out finished bags.

The second is living history and rendezvous reenactment. The American Mountain Men, the National Association of Primitive Riflemen, and a network of regional rendezvous events keep the period kit alive. Bags built for this audience are often close reproductions of museum originals.

The third is everyday carry. The contemporary leather-goods scene, small Western and Americana brands, Etsy makers, heritage outdoor labels, has reintroduced the possibles bag as a daily small-shoulder bag, sometimes branded as a “haversack” or “satchel” but identical in form. The contents have changed (phone, wallet, keys, sunglasses, notebook) but the design has not, and the case for carrying one over a backpack on a city day is exactly the same case the trapper would have made: it rides on the body, it opens fast, it lasts forever. If you carry a full-grain leather journal cover in it, vegetable-tanned, same material as the bags from the 1830s, the lineage is essentially unbroken.

Building or buying one

A working possibles bag in the modern market falls into three tiers.

Mass-produced. Imported bags from middling leather, listed online as “rendezvous bag,” “trapper bag,” or “haversack.” Functional for a beginner reenactor or a casual shoulder bag, but the leather is often thin and the hardware base metal.

Small-shop. Etsy makers, saddlemakers’ side work, and small Western leather brands. Look for vegetable-tanned leather in a proper weight, brass hardware, and hand stitching. This is the sweet spot for a buyer who wants a working bag that will last decades.

Commission. Custom hand-tooled work from named makers. Tooled patterns, often in the same style as a Western saddle or a tooled belt. These are heirloom objects and priced as such.

If you are building one yourself, the simplest pattern is two rectangles (front and back) and a long strip (gusset and strap, cut from the same belly piece). Saddle-stitch it with two needles, put a brass buckle on the flap, and finish with leather wax. A first attempt by an absolute beginner is a long afternoon and produces something usable. Tandy’s Basic Leathercraft Set includes tools, leather, and instructions to get started, and Weaver Leather sell the materials in beginner bundles in that same range.

Why the name still does work

“Possibles” is one of the words the fur trade gave to American English that mostly survived only inside the trade and the reenactor world. Most people now would call this object a “leather satchel” or a “shoulder bag” or just a “bag.” But the old name still does work, because it points to the original design intent: a small, weatherproof, soft container for the things that the day might possibly require. That intent is still useful, and the bag that meets it is still useful, and the form is still recognizable.

You will also hear the object called a “hunting pouch,” and in practice the terms overlap enough that reenactors and modern muzzleloaders use them interchangeably. Where traditionalists draw a line, a hunting pouch is shooting-specific, powder horn, balls, patches, and the shooting kit only, while a possibles bag is the broader daily load-out that carries whatever else the day required. In practice the line between the two is blurry.

It is one of the few pieces of frontier kit you can buy a faithful copy of today and use, in the same way it was used originally, for the rest of your life.

Related reading on this site

• What is a trading post? A history of frontier commerce
• Hand-tooled leather: how real Western leatherwork is made
• The heritage gear glossary: nearly 100 terms every buyer should know
• Wyoming outfitters offering horseback hunting trips
• A buyer’s guide to heritage camping bedrolls in 2026
• Buffalo Bill Cody: the man who sold the West to the world
• Pinedale, Wyoming: the Bridger Wilderness gateway and Mountain Man capital

Further reading

• Carl P. Russell, Firearms, Traps, & Tools of the Mountain Men (Alfred A. Knopf, 1967; UNM Press paperback also available). The standard scholarly reference.
• James A. Hanson and Kathryn J. Wilson Hanson, The Mountain Man’s Sketch Book, Volumes I and II (Fur Press, Canyon, Texas, 1976). Drawings of original kit, a standard reenactor reference.
• Museum of the Fur Trade Quarterly, the journal of the Museum of the Fur Trade, Chadron, Nebraska.
• The Museum of the Fur Trade itself, on the site of James Bordeaux’s trading post east of Chadron. Worth a trip to western Nebraska if you can make one.