Heading into storage for a few months

[Les]

Here's one of the items from my collection heading into storage while I'm in the process of selling the homstead and relocating across town. Soooooo.....here's a wee glimpse of a particular tunic that's real, and not often the mucked about ones almost always being fobbed off as real.

Enjoy it until I can dig it out and take better photos in a few months...

Les

[Mark M]

Les

Beautiful tunic! It looks unissued. Does it have the acceptance stamps on the inside?

Mark

[Les]

Les

Beautiful tunic! It looks unissued. Does it have the acceptance stamps on the inside?

Mark

Mark, thanks. It's a private purchase tunic with the straps made from the same cord material the tunic is, and are sewn into the seams. That's enough to show the tunic was made for someone in aviation rather than a tunic with "add ons" usually encountered on officer items. It's not an issue piece, however, I'm -not- complaining.

Les

[Chip]

Les,

Many ooohs and aaaahs. It's a fine piece and typical of the air service, where it seems like no one wanted to wear a regulation issue uniform.

Chip

[Daniel Murphy]

Les,

That is one great uniform and unique with the late war NCO borte and piped boards. Is there any name or ID?

Dan Murphy

[Chip]

That gray NCO Borte with the white stripes came out in the fall of 1915, just about the time the Hellgrau piped boards were about to be superceded. So they are contemporary. My guess is that this tunic dates from the fall of 1915 or early 1916. It could date from a later time, however, as the latitude for following regulations was pretty wide in the air service.

Chip

[Les]

Dan, no name or markings. There are stitch marks were the makers label was removed, but nothing there to allow the tunic to be traced to whoever owned it.

Chip, thanks for the oohs...and ahhs! I'm inclined to agree with your assessment of the approx time period the tunic was made, although there's the possibility the Borte could have been added if the man were promoted after he had the tunic made.

The color of the material is a mixed light grey-green, with more green in it than grey. It's definitely not the light green color seen in some of the early m10 pre-war tunics. The photo looks more grey than it really is. Trying to date a tunic by color is risky, but after saying that, the color is not in the darker colors usually seen later in the war.

Les

[Stogieman]

Wow, one does not come across an NCO "private purchase" uniform very often...... especially flieger truppen