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Welcome To “The Bargain Basement”

interbak

Member
I received my RL rough-out boots today. Nice looking boots, seam solid. Unfortunately they are only a D width which isn’t going to cut it, and they aren’t available in wider widths. Luckily Softmoc has a no hassle return policy, so they’ll be going back.
 

PADDY_M

Well-Known Member
Two layers of Dubbin later. For £36 GBP... Can't be bad. Google Superdry (I know! I'd never usually have bought their stuff) Officer's Boots. Bargains are out there. Sweet little Roughout boot with period correct soles (nailed, glued and through stitch).
 

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MaydayWei

Well-Known Member
@mulceber Thanks Jan!
I was incredibly lucky to find her at my local military surplus store.
I could only find Canadian Army ones for sale on eBay:

Note:
The older Canadian scarves are marked “Scarf, Man’s, Air” for the RCAF, “Scarf, Man’s, Land” for the Canadian Army, and so on and so forth; with all of them being marked with the manufacturer’s name on the tagging. More modern ones, in contrast, are all made by (or at least are all marked) “Logistik Unicorp”. It goes without saying that the older models are more desirable. That said, all are made in Canada and most are made from 100% wool. But be sure to double check the label!

The main difference I found between the older scarves and the more modern Logistik scarves is that the older scarves have a “brushed” finish with a slight “fluff”/shaggy texture. The newer scarves have no shaggy fluff and are more sharply textured.
 
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MauldinFan

Well-Known Member
Just nabbed a RL rough out boot off eBay for 100 total including shipping. I wear a D size in most cases so hopefully it'll fit well. They should work with leggings for my WW2 uniforms and would be better made than some repro rough outs...
I love this forum, I never would have known about these otherwise.
I got the boots pretty quick and while they seem to fit okay, the darned things were green in color. I have nobody to blame but myself for that. But I'd always intended to dye them brown anyway as roughouts always were done. They're not a perfect replica of the WW2 Army ones, but they should be fully good with leggings and a browner color...
 

MaydayWei

Well-Known Member
NOS Royal Canadian Navy Submariner Jumpers, sz S and XL, $50 CAD!

 

MauldinFan

Well-Known Member
They're not a perfect replica of the WW2 Army ones, but they should be fully good with leggings and a browner color...
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Not long ago, I got some leather dye and went over these green-tined Polo boots, and they turned out pretty decently. I have since wiped them down with a wet rag to get some of the dye off the surface, and am keeping them out in the garage until it's more likely the dye had dried as good as it can get. I need to get a dremel tool to the 'polo' logo on the bottom of the heels, though, for living history events (don't want to leave that in my footprints).
 
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mulceber

Moderator
It's been over a year since we've had a new entry in this post, so here's another bargain basement item for people:
World War I Officer's Musette Bag from What Price Glory.
Price: $45

This is another one that Burt introduced me to. When we met up last year at Wright-Pat he had this great satchel that carried everything he needed, didn't look out of place or over-the-top military. It was just a great piece of equipment. He told me he picked it up at WPG, so I had to get one for myself. Absolutely recommend it. Solid construction, solid materials. If you need a man purse, this is a great option.
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Burt, holding his Musette bag up next to an original that we saw at Wright-Pat.
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Spitfireace

Well-Known Member
So ... it’s been a slow day today, so I thought I’d post another “Bargain Basement” advisory.
A few years ago I was searching in vain for an original mint Mechanics A-1 sweater. Try as I might, I couldn’t find one that was mint and when I finally did, it was a size small or a medium . Eventually I gave up searching and dropped a tidy sum of cash on an ELC Mechanics A-1 . Roughly about $176.00 US .
I had that sweater about 3 months when out of no where a friend of mine called me up one day and said “ he knew a guy “ who had an original in a large size but it wouldn’t be cheap . Ok understandable, most of these things didn’t last long, what with heavy wear , unforgiving washing machines and moths, most were beat up with holes or destroyed . Well the short story was I found a mint A-1 sweater in a large size and once again shelled out some big bucks. Which brings me to the real story . A few years ago I found “Outdoor knitwear”. An on line store operating out of the UK . I was looking through some of their collections and to my surprise I found a NIFFI Mechanics A-1 sweater with a $60.00 price tag. I was curious and wanted to know more about the sweater . So for $60.00 I ordered one . When it arrived I was floored . The sweater was 100% wool and was every bit as good as the original or the ELC ones for far less money. So without further explanation here’s another “Bargain Basement Special”.
Here a photo of the Niffi on the left , the original on the top right and the ELC on the lower right . The color difference means very little as there were several different shades of OD and Khaki during the war , sometimes due to different contractors, sometimes from the same contractor using materials from different dye lots. View attachment 46096View attachment 46094
IView attachment 46095
Under that photo is an original A1 and under that is the NIFFI Mechanics A-1.
COST
Original ..... 1st born male child
Top Tier ......$176.00 US
Niffi brand ....$60.00 US
SAVINGS ........ $116.00 and 1st born son!
The sweater is a great quality piece of kit and
the difference in prices are noteworthy
It’s your money .... It’s your call.
If you enjoyed the review please let me know in the comment section. If not please let me know that as well.
Edit : Oh and I forgot to mention OutDoor has BOB and Sub Mariner Sweaters as well
Bahh Bahh Blacksheep.
 

JonnyCrow

Well-Known Member
Hi guys!
I’ve been thinking about doing this thread ever since I posted the Virgil Hilts on a budget thread
I was looking at that thread the other day and thought that I might try and pick up where that thread left off, with finding reduced cost options and products for some of us who are on a budget , have limited spending power , or if you’re like me, just refuse to spend ridiculous amounts of money on some of this stuff. Now, I realize that some of you believe that “you only get what you pay for”, and to that extent, I respect and agree with you on
that point however, I also believe that in this hobby there are many times where we, “don’t get what we pay for”. In fact, how many times have we seen products who’s prices were jacked up simply because they were repros of military or vintage made items with a “ US “ mark stamped one them. Often times we’ve seen items that were sold by some of those same manufactures on the commercial market with no stamp for far less . Or items that were commercially sold that closely resembled those “ US” marked products at reduced prices. So with this in mind, I would like to start this thread to provide options for all of us who are interested in seeing less costly products, that would still be quality gear but at reduced prices . For clarification, this thread will not criticize or demean the manufactures who sell their ridiculously high priced products. We all know who they are. Instead it will simply bring “ options” to your attention that may or may not work for you.
Hopefully many of you will come across reduce cost quality items ( notice that I didn’t say cheap here) that may be of interest to the rest of us, and will post some information about those products here. So with that in mind let me begin with a very good quality item that I recently purchased on Amazon .
After reading a recent thread on “1942 Flying Gloves” I did a little detective work to see what was out there on the commercial market that looked very close to those WWII Gloves, and would be a quality item at a reduced cost from the current prices, which in one case is in excess of $100 US for a pair of leather or horsehide gloves. So ... here’s what I found.
Here’s a photo of “1942 Flying Gloves”
View attachment 46066
Now here’s a photo of commercially made Buffalo hide gloves made by the Illinois Glove Company and sold on Amazon for $12.99 US.
View attachment 46067
The only issue is that these gloves come with an elastic band sewn into the interior of the glove that gathers the top of the glove around the wrist .
View attachment 46068
Once that is removed you have essentially the same glove .
COST SAVINGS $110.00 vs $12.99.
Is the authencity difference between these two sets of gloves worth the price difference ?
It’s your money ... you make the call.

PS. If you guys like reading about this sort of information please let me know in your comments. If you don’t see any value in this type of post , please let me know that as well.
Thank you.
Excellent Burt, those cheaper gloves incidentally I used to use them in the UK years ago on commercial gardening jobs,
 

Spitfireace

Well-Known Member
Was this post intended for the "What jacket are you wearing today?" thread? Or is this another item for the bargain basement?
Ya I guess it was not thread appropriate. Should have been in the "what jacket are you wearing". We used to use a bag in the Canadian Forces at basic training that was probably called a musette bag. It was nicknamed a "stinky bag" because it was a canvas sack that we used to carry our books for classes and it smelled of old canvas. I don't have it as we had to turn it in, after graduation. It had a shoulder strap and two closing straps.
 

Spitfireace

Well-Known Member
Here's something that I bought as a bargain back when I was 13 or so from an army surplus store that was located on the outskirts of Canadian Forces Base Chilliwack close to Vancouver. There used to be this crazy old guy who had a shack basically outside the fences of the base and he sold old army clothing and back then you could buy stuff for fifty cents or a buck. I bought this Canadian Army bush cap for fifty cents. The reason I'm thinking about it is it has gotten unseasonably hot here this weekend and I dug it out of a drawer to keep the sun off my head. I've never worn it much really since I was a kid. Great cap for that sort of thing though. If you ever have watched The Red Green Show he wears this same type
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cap.
 
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