History of German Moleskin Uniforms

[sammlermws]

One note. You have one of yours listed as a Type 2 with no elbow reinforcements. That's a Type 3 from what I can tell.

Steve

Steve,
The reason I say type 2 is because of the dished buttons and not the later rounded buttons like on your type 3. That's all, Otherwise they are the same.

[Collectinsteve]

Interesting! I don't think I've seen a mix like that before, but you dove into more examples in person than I've ever had in my hands. eBay pics don't usually show such details.

In times of transition sometimes the government makes allowances for small variations in order to save some money by using up existing inventory. The buttons could be an example of that. Given that the transition time was around 1974, and your jacket is dated 1975, it's not too surprising to see "old" buttons used on the "new" jacket. If your jacket was dated 1984 I would be at a loss to explain it.

I'm one of those collectors that likes to have variations, so I've seen a lot of this sort of thing before. The times of transition often have a number of "quirks" that don't generally conform to uniforms made +/- 2 years from the official changeover.

Personally, I don't give such items their own category unless there's some major blurring of the line. The only difference in your jacket is the dish buttons, which is less important than the other differences. So IMHO it should be thought of as a Type 3 with a footnote that it has the older style buttons. Put another way, the difference of the buttons isn't more important than the similarity of the other features.

Steve

[Asbjoern]

I agree with Steve that button types will not make a new type of garment. As buttons will have been bought from second line suppliers by the textile producting companies one of the contactors still may have had larger stocks of "old-style" buttons while another contractor will have purchase new made buttons for a series of jackets (etc) .
The general changes making the main types will be dur to changes in the TL as the basic document during the purchase process. All the minor variations will be interpretations of the TL by different contractores / the same contactor over the time in producting different lots.

Jens

[Collectinsteve]

An example of a major difference is something like the Lithuanian desert uniforms. The first model had a particular design, the second a radically different set of features. The cloth for the first model was 4 color camo with a distinctly yellow look, the second model used a 3 color camo with an almost pinkish tone. They had some cloth left over from the first model and produced a small second model with the remaining cloth. Perhaps the new cloth wasn't ready, perhaps they simply wanted to use all their old cloth before switching. I don't know (soldiers were told the latter).

This is an example of something significant enough to be counted separately. One way is to call it 1st, 2nd, and 3rd models. Another way is to call them 1st, transitional, and 2nd models. We collectors can settle on whatever makes sense to us

Steve