Modern scabbards by most craftsmen are very expensive, and not historically accurate. I come from a reenactment background so historical accuracy is important, though I know many modern sword enthusiasts are more collectors and less interested in that aspect.
Regardless, you can make a good scabbard that wears well in a matter of hours. If you have to make the wood sore yourself that can be difficult, but binding and shaping two slats of thin poplar is the easiest way.
The leather can be expensive, but using thin veg-tan for the scabbard itself is the best way. The suspension and brlting can vary, I’ve used deer skin, veg-tan, and even chrome tanned leather and they all work fine. Before doing scabbards I had ZERO leatherwork experience too, so anyone can pick it up.
Some I’ve made:
imgur.com/a/jzjh7auNeat work. It's nice to know the craft is fairly easy to jump into. Could you expand on "historical accuracy"? Are you referring to the construction of modern scabbards, or their level of detail? Because this raises the question of what scabbards in the past
really looked like, which is interesting to ponder.
(This is all AFAIK.)
Here's a question of materials. The majority, if not
all modern scabbards use leather (or synthetics) as their covering. I haven't seen a single shop offer textile-wrapped scabbards. Meanwhile, we have multiple accounts of scabbards which used fabric instead of leather, both for lower and upper class examples. Linen was a popular choice historically, even more than leather. It was glued on and then waxed for protection. I imagine this was the everyman's choice; affordable and effective. However, linen wasn't just a peasant's material. Even Charlemagne himself had a linen-wrapped scabbard. For those who could afford it, velvet was a tasteful option. Probably reserved for nobility, that one. Apparently there were at least a few vellum (calfskin parchment) wrapped scabbards too. This all goes to say that our modern view on what scabbards
can be made of is pretty damn narrow.
Perhaps this is because we're not educated on the alternatives. There's not really any examples to look at, because hardly any scabbards survived alongside their sword. Unless there's a linen scabbard preserved in a bog somewhere, we might never know what
exactly these alternatives looked like. Our best clues are written accounts, period artwork, and the books of modern historians. All pretty niche stuff. Nothing that would really break into popular depictions.
However, even if this knowledge was widespread, how many people would purchase non-leather scabbards, besides the history buffs? How many would bother making them? Although there's a great love for historically accurate swords, why doesn't that passion for accuracy not extend to the scabbard as well? We pay for our craftsmen to capture almost every detail about these old weapons, but we're content to "freestyle" the rest after that. Maybe all we care about is having something flashy and attractive to house our swords in. And that's fine, if a bit disappointing.
Personally, I'd love linen scabbards as a more affordable alternative to leather scabbards. I'd also love velvet as another "fancy" option. I just want the possibilities to be realized, really. I think there's room for quite a bit of artistic expression beyond leather alone. Fabric doesn't have to be plain and boring!
For the thread, here's some examples I dug up:
An excerpt describing Charlemagne's sword.
A modern linen scabbard for a Carolingian/Viking sword, replicating the artwork found in the Stuttgart Psalter.
Some exceptionally well preserved scabbards. Note the more "reserved" approach to the design compared to what we have today. The details have surely decayed, but you can tell the expectations were different. The sword on the right is covered with red velvet. It must've looked quite pretty back in its day.
The middle sword, comparing artwork and sculpture of this style to an original.