An stunning 1930s find. You'll never see another like it.

[Baron Kurtz]

I am mainly a collector/wearer of civilian vintage gear. I scour the vintage and thrift stores in every town i visit or live in. I honestly never thought London would be as productive as it has been.

There i was in Camden of all places, and in Rokit no less, one of the bigger stores (3 branches in London). This is one of the most picked over places in the UK when it comes to vintage clothing. So amongst the rack is this thing. This is my greatest ever vintage purchase. It's a motorcycle jacket tentatively dated to the late 1930s. Nothing special there, i've had three others from this era out of London stores. But this one is WHITE. And TWO TONE. And cafe racer collar. They literally don't get much rarer than this in the civilian leather arena. This is a Tanaka-grade jacket. I think it's made of deer hide, but maybe it's lamb/sheep. It's beat up pretty good, dirty, and with tears on a small portion of the lowest front panel. But it's wearable with caution. The liner is i think replacement and the zips are early 60s (probably) replacements - the old stitch holes are present. I may re-replace them with era-correct zippers. Check out the contrasting purplish-brownish leather stitched into the pleats (front and back!!). One belt missing, unfortunately. And the best part? It cost me 25 quid.

Enjoy …

It has a beautifully tailored central pleat down the rear centre seam. And that wonderful tiny belt almost unique to the era.

bk

 

[handworn]

A beautiful piece, no doubt about it, and a real bargain.

 

[johnwayne]

Good find BK - I go to Rokit in E1 all the time (well at least once a week) but only as I work just around the corner and I've picked up some good buys but never really seen anything good 'leatherwise' and would never have spotted that, albeit not my area of interest but nevertheless,
encouraging to know such finds can still be had!!! At one of Rokit's competitors in E1, one our members recently did spot an M442a that was pretty good although not mint as described, trouble is it was too pricey for the condtion and as such was still there, when I last looked!!

Wayne

 

[Baron Kurtz]

I've had a 40s Canadian motorcycle jacket out of Beyond Retro E1 before. Another Cafe collar jacket; brown goatskin that one. And Beyond Retro's W1 store has given me a 30s suede (below). Both rock bottom under £50 prices. Both Rokit E1 and their W1 branch have had some lovely early leather, but usually priced appropriately. This is a rare example where their pricer went nuts, i guess.

Beyond Retro E1 for the longest time had a complete USAAF sheepskin suit - jacket, trousers, and hat. They had it on a mannequin in the "real vintage" section in the second room up the ramp. It was pretty beat up, though, with all the zips replaced and holes (which i heard were made by a member of staff manhandling the pieces. :shock:

bk

 

[johnwayne]

And there's me thinking most Rokit/Beyond Retro visitors are all hip and trendy rather than enthusiast/collectors of classic stuff like VLJ'ers! Doh!!!
Most good items I do see tend to be too small - not that I'm big but you do need a good eye and plenty of time to sift the wheat from the chaff.

Wayne