United Sheeplined, Bronco, and I. Spiewak & Sons, What do they all have in common?

[B-Man2]

If you said that they were “kissing cousins” or related by blood, you wouldn’t be wrong. For those of you who may be hearing this for the first time, all three of those manufacturers of WWII A2 jackets , and many other types of WWI and WWII military jackets as well, were started and owned by members of one family . The Isaac Spiewak family.

Notice that I didn’t say sons, the reason being is that while Isaacs’ sons were involved in the company that we all know him for, Isaac Spiewak & Sons, his Son in Laws founded, United Sheeplined, and Isaac and other family members founded Bronco
Manufacturing. It’s a an interesting story and back in 2011 VLJ member “bjoy” wrote up a historical post of Isaac Spiewak, that is probably one of the most comprehensive posts on this forum about Spiewak, his family and his businesses. You can read it here:

Researching I. Spiewak & Sons, Inc

Isaac Spiewak immigrated from Warsaw, Poland, with his wife and then five children in 1903. The family grew to eight children with sons Henry E (1894-1976), Philip (1896-1991), Murray E (1906-1985), Harry I, Peter, Sam R, and daughters Esther (1899-1968) and Rose. Isaac had noticed that the...

www.vintageleatherjackets.org

For a Polish immigrant coming to the US in 1904 in search of the “American Dream” Isaac certainly did achieve a high level of success .
Ok .. so after some thought about the roles these three companies played in the manufacture of the A2 jacket during WWII, I decided to do a comparison review of all three jackets to see exactly what traits they might have in common ... if any. I’m very fortunate to own original A2’s from each of these companies , a Bronco , a USL and a I. Spiewak & Sons , so I thought that I’d take a look at them, along with you guys and post some photos for your review as well .
So let’s begin with a review of all three jackets
United Sheeplined

Bronco

I.Spiewak &Sons

Now without a lot of effort you can see that there are some similarities in a few areas of each of these jackets. So let’s drill down a bit and take a closer look at some individual sections of these jackets .
Labels

As you already knew the labels are similar as specific information was required on each label , however the label placement right up under the leather hanger is interesting in that several different contractors placed their labels all over the place but these three jackets have label placement figured out .
Now at this point I have to let you know that I have a lot more to come , but because I’m doing this from my cell phone , I’m limited to only posting 10 photographs at a time so, the only way I can manage this is to post this section and then come back with the next section with more photos once it’s completed. A frustrating process for both of us but we’ll get through it
Be back shortly with the next chapter.

 

[B-Man2]

Ok .. We’re back . So let’s move into the collars of the three jackets .
Collars USL

Bronco

Spiewak

One of the first things you notice is that all three jacket collars are made without collar stands . We learned through previous postings that late war jackets did away with the collar stand as a time and cost savings change . However all three of these jackets were made in May of1942 still early in the war , which leads me to believe that the non inclusion of a collar stand was typical of the Spiewak choice in making the jackets . Now I have no firm proof of this statement other than it seems reasonable they would choose to do that to cut time and increase production .
Your thoughts are welcome on this as well as anything posted here.
Hardware and Snaps
USL

Bronco

 

[s4rmark]

Another great write up, keep em coming !

 

[B-Man2]

Spiewak

Well here’s a common point on all three jackets . All of them have small ring snaps from United Carr . While it’s not a significant issue, as other manufacturers used that snap, it is interesting to see that they have that in common. Next let’s look at pocket design , pocket flaps and similarities between the three .
USL

Bronco

Spiewak

Well maybe it’s just me but those pocket flaps on all three jackets look eerily similar and the cut and trim of the pocket corners on the USL and Bronco are a match while the stitching patterns on the top corners of the Spiewak and Bronco look close to each other as well.
Ok definitely a few similarities in different areas of the three jackets I’d say . Let’s check the zips .

 

[B-Man2]

USL

Bronco

Spiewak

Now this is a bit deceiving because the USL has a Talon zip but here’s the issue . I checked this fact with Gary Eastman’s A2 Manual ( A great book ) and in fact most USLs were made with Crown zips similar to the Bronco and Spiewak. It’s just that a few USLs were produced with Talons and this happens to be one of them. So once again we have some similarities here.
Ok let’s look at the epaulettes:
USL

Bronco

Spiewak

While the attachment stitch patterns are different . The USL and the Spiewak have close approximations of each other particularly in the taper of the epaulettes, wide at the shoulder and narrow at the neck attachment area . Additionally the USL and the Spiewak epaulettes seem to sit right over the shoulder seam, while the Bronco looks to be attached in front of the shoulder seam.

 

[B-Man2]

Well I’ve probably put some of you to sleep by now , so let’s end with this. While there are several differences in the three jackets , there seems to be some noticeable similarities as well . Let’s also give credit to the Spiewak family for their production of jackets during wartime to help out and do there part for the war effort . And of course to make some big bucks in the process . By the way did you know that Spiewak was credited with the making of some of the first USN N-1 jackets ? No no don’t panic .. I’m done here ... honest !
Cheers

 

[mulceber]

Great review, Burt - and it's always nice to see jackets from your collection. I didn't realize you had a Bronco though.

 

[Dom]

Hi Burt...Thanks for the great write-up! You are a lucky man to have three original size 46’s in the collection! when I had my original size 48 it took forever to find it.
Dom

 

[B-Man2]

Hi Burt...Thanks for the great write-up! You are a lucky man to have three original size 46’s in the collection! when I had my original size 48 it took forever to find it.
Dom

Dom
Thanks for the kind words.
They are tough to find. Just didn’t have many big guys in the cockpits back in those days .

 

[foster]

Nice to see these compared with each other. I know there’s similarities also with Aero and Poughkeepsie. Not sure if they are linked the way these companies were, but there’s some definite similarities.

 

[SuinBruin]

Great thread, thanks for the time and effort.

 

[ausreenactor]

AAAh, start three companies and all bid for the lucrative Army contracts.. Shrewd business mindsets.....

 

[Kennyz]

Well done review, Burt. Thanks for taking the time to do it.

I have to say your Spiewak original is gorgeous! Is the leather goatskin?

Ken

 

[B-Man2]

Well done review, Burt. Thanks for taking the time to do it.

I have to say your Spiewak original is gorgeous! Is the leather goatskin?

Ken

Hi Ken
Thanks for your kind words .
The Spiewak contract was a one time contract and all of the jackets were made from goatskin .

 

[Kennyz]

Interesting, I didn't know that. Thanks Burt.

Ken

Hi Ken
Thanks for your kind words .
The Spiewak contract was a one time contract and all of the jackets were made from goatskin .

 

[daw]

Burt,
I'd like to echo the prior posts-such a treat to see the different lines compared. Thanks so much for your time and effort!

 

[Nickb123]

The Bronco and USL pockets do look really similar. Thanks for posting this.

 

[Bombing IP]

Burt one of the jackets with the open flap shows heavy impressions from the serrations on the base of the walking foot . Partly due to the sharpness of the serrations and also because the foot pressure is a little excessive .Strange the rest of the jacket shows no marks like this ,must be a sub operation done on a separate machine with double needle machine .

Jeff

 

[B-Man2]

Just one of the little idiosyncrasies' that seems to pop up with originals.
God knows if we ordered an repro today and it showed up with something like that we'd send it back immediately.
But that's what wartime production looked like.

 

[blackrat2]

Thanks Burt
No, you probably haven’t put anyone to sleep
Another great post from you
Thanks for digging in and doing this with your cell phone