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I found a cool looking 1970's Taylor leather Police jacket on the interwebs. Style-wise it's very similar to an A2 and it's in great condition and the price is right. Does anybody have any experience with these jacket's especially an old one. What's the quality like?
If it's the BIN at £100 from lilysplace (think that's the name) it looks good and he's an honest seller, my only doubts were why there seemed to be more stitching on one shoulder where the Police patch had been...of course they have to remove them when 'decomissioned' but it seems there had been more than one there.
I've owned a Detroit PD jacket made by Taylor that was obviously inspired by the Buco PJ-27. However, that's where the similarity ended. In my experience the leather used in these jackets is of inferior quality, without any of the suppleness exhibited by higher-quality hides. The hardware is equally uninspiring. That said, it may nonetheless be worth GBP100 because it's a lot cheaper than the better jackets.
You may want to ask the seller for closeup pics of the areas where patches were removed. I won an ex-Suffolk County (NY) jacket on Ebay awhile back and when it arrived I found that the patches had been cut off with a razor blade, leaving a few weak spots in the leather where the stitching had been. I had my tailor reinforce this from the inside, but it was a disappointment all the same.
It does, and my older one wasn't much better but perhaps the one you're looking at will be OK. I also never tried Pecard or any other dressing on it, so I'm not sure if it could have been improved on. BTW, it appears to be an earlier version of either the Indianapolis or Memphis models.
I have this same jacket from around 1960 and it's very well made. The construction details are the same except that mine has a Coats Clark zip and the side waist elastic is wool. With very nice heavy brown flexible hide, probably steer, it's my favorite vintage leather. This is the only photo I have at the moment, but it shows the back of the zip laying over the wool side waist section. Very long 27" sleeves on this size 44.