Olive Capeskin?

[Skyhawk]

Eastman claims that the original specs called for Olive Capeskin for the A-1 Flight jacket. The documentation I have seen says the test samples were made in 1. Brown & 2.Tan. It appears that G&F was the only company to submit a Tan sample. Spalding submitted Cape referred to as "Special".

An interesting point is the fact that I believe Spalding also submitted test jackets for the USN 37J1 test program during the same time period. They have listed in the document above that "Special Cape Leather" was used for the A-1. I believe they made the first 37J1 jackets including the pre spec type 1 "High Hats" jacket.

I have obtained this original colorized movie press release photo. It can be seen that the "High Hats" jacket was colored......OLIVE in the photo. Could this be the "Special Cape Leather mentioned in the document also used for the USN samples? Or is it just a mistake in coloring? The other jacket worn by Gable is the correct chestnut color the photo, so why not make the other jacket color correct as well?

The question is, if I make up some Olive Capeskin as an option, would anyone buy it? Or would I be stuck with a bunch of hides I can't use?

Opinions?

Regards,
Jay

 

[DiamondDave]

Jay,

I wonder if by Tan they actually meant “Drab Shade #3”, or the Golden olive we know and love from the 1942 Para jump uniform? Interesting find on the spec sheets.

DD

 

[MikeyB-17]

I have heard of olive capeskin being the original spec for the A-1, but I read it in 'Cowboys of the sky', Avirex's laughable testament to their tremendous accuracy, so I never took it seriously.

 

[ausreenactor]

Risky. I think the 'buy in' would be very small.

 

[zoomer]

I am positive that the confusion - on the Navy side anyway - arose from both brown capeskin and olive Bedford cord jackets sharing the spec number 37J1.

The Hell Divers lobby card will be doubly unreliable because a) they were hand tinted to begin with and b) the printing inks might have faded any which way.

 

[zoomer]

A decade-plus ago, Lost Worlds did a few A-1s in OD horsehide, which they called "an excellent historical choice" (not knowing there wasn't any way to back it up...and surely not caring).

The color was a little too green, giving the jackets a kind of Kermit the Frog look that is not helped by the contrasting buttons.

 

[Saint-ex]

Not for me.

 

[Silver Surfer]

i kinda like the "olive" color in the beery-gable pic. the kermit green of the lw is just like everything else lw....over made, over done, and not at all historicaly accurate.

 

[Changeling]

You would end up making little jackets for the Leprechauns just to use up the Capeskin.

 

[Skyhawk]

A decade-plus ago, Lost Worlds did a few A-1s in OD horsehide, which they called "an excellent historical choice" (not knowing there wasn't any way to back it up...and surely not caring).

The color was a little too green, giving the jackets a kind of Kermit the Frog look that is not helped by the contrasting buttons.

Yes I remember when LW released those. That is emerald green, not even close.

I have long been a proponent of the green cloth 37J1 confusion on the USN side, but what about the Specs saying Olive for the A-1? If the specs say that, maybe some test jackets were made before it was changed to brown.

 

[B-Man2]

Over the years we’ve had people post several black and white photos of Carl Spatz and Hap Arnold wearing A1 jackets and I can’t recall anyone suggesting that the photos of those jackets looked like the jacket might be olive green . Now this doesn’t mean a lot, but is there anyway to colorize or do a photo comparison between those A1 jackets and photos of jackets we know to be olive colored? What about comparing them to the known colors of various A2 jackets. Not scientific by any means but it might give us a clue.
Isn’t this pretty much what was done with the photos of the Goldsmith to come up with an accurate color representation for the repro version?

 

[Skyhawk]

i kinda like the "olive" color in the beery-gable pic. the kermit green of the lw is just like everything else lw....over made, over done, and not at all historicaly accurate.

Yes the Beery reminds me of the Shamrock Shake from Mcdees

That jacket Beery wore was tattered. It had stains and even was missing the bottom main button. You would think they would at least had fixed that for him!

 

[Skyhawk]

Over the years we’ve had people post several black and white photos of Carl Spatz and Hap Arnold wearing A1 jackets and I can’t recall anyone suggesting that the photos of those jackets looked like the jacket might be olive green . Now this doesn’t mean a lot, but is there anyway to colorize or do a photo comparison between those A1 jackets and photos of jackets we know to be olive colored? What about comparing them to the known colors of various A2 jackets. Not scientific by any means but it might give us a clue.
Isn’t this pretty much what was done with the photos of the Goldsmith to come up with an accurate color representation for the repro version?

I Have seen those jackets and they were brown. The question is, if in fact the specifications does state Olive Drab as the color, were there a small amount of olive ones made before the specification was changed? Obviously the specification ended up being brown very early on.

 

[Bombing IP]

My answer to you Jay ,No way Jose !.

Jeff

 

[Skyhawk]

My answer to you Jay ,No way Jose !.

Jeff

Man should have made a poll out of this..... It would have been interesting. So far I would say the nays have it

 

[bseal]

Perhaps, it might be wise to get an image uploaded of a leather swatch sample that you are proposing?

 

[Skyhawk]

Perhaps, it might be wise to get an image uploaded of a leather swatch sample that you are proposing?

There's no samples. My tanner doesn't make Olive. It would be dyed to my specifications but would require at least a small run to get some done. Just testing out the idea.

Perhaps it would be wise to not make olive jackets is what I am thinking......

 

[B-Man2]

Unless you think you’d cover your costs, It might be best to stay with what you’re doing now .

 

[John Lever]

My dad used to refer to army gear as being Olive Drab. Olive green is quite brown and looks brown in certsin light conditions.

 

[bseal]

This question resembles a post in the Buy/Sell thread: “Hey guys, I have a wonderful jacket to sell, how about it?” Wherein, forum members politely remind the individual to follow up with detailed images and measurements.