I just figured I'd post this in case someone is looking for information in the future. I recently bought 143 winter camouflage snow ponchos and spent the evening sorting them. Here is some information that I collected in no particular order.
I found four manufacturers:
Pausch, Geco, Raka, V. Mehler A.G.
All that were dated (the large majority) were dated from 1963 up through the late 60's. I think that there may have been one in there from the 70's too but I might be mistaken on that.
The camouflage design was identical from manufacturer to manufacturer but there were variations in both detail of the splotches (IMO due to how much ink was on the roller when printing) and dye color even within the same manufacturer.
The Geco and Raka ponchos tended toward lighter hues while Pausch and Mehler tended to be darker.
Colors observed were mid green, dark green, dark brown and slate grey. The slate grey might have just a tinge of green in it. Colors did not seem to correlate with dates in any way.
Material seemed to be identical regardless of manufacturer.
Manufacturer labels differed in how they indicated date ranging from a month and year stamped on the tag, to no indication of date (very few like this) to a year being printed on the tag with a month then stamped before the year (I only found Mehler examples marked in this fashion). Sometimes the month was spelled out but abbreviated, sometimes is was indicated with a number. Likewise, sometimes the year included a 19 but sometimes it did not.
Most were size II but a few were size I.
Some tags (not many) had one or more inspector stamps applied (typical eagle with wings surrounding inspector number).
Just a very few had one or two extraneous letters stamped on or near the manufacturer tag.
If anyone cares enough and wants pictures, I can take a few. However, due to the significant number of variations (even within the same manufacturer), I can't post every combination. I'll be selling these soon and the likelihood of someone crazy enough to look at this many ponchos at one time again is probably not going to happen any time soon. So, if you want any information, now is the time to ask.
I found four manufacturers:
Pausch, Geco, Raka, V. Mehler A.G.
All that were dated (the large majority) were dated from 1963 up through the late 60's. I think that there may have been one in there from the 70's too but I might be mistaken on that.
The camouflage design was identical from manufacturer to manufacturer but there were variations in both detail of the splotches (IMO due to how much ink was on the roller when printing) and dye color even within the same manufacturer.
The Geco and Raka ponchos tended toward lighter hues while Pausch and Mehler tended to be darker.
Colors observed were mid green, dark green, dark brown and slate grey. The slate grey might have just a tinge of green in it. Colors did not seem to correlate with dates in any way.
Material seemed to be identical regardless of manufacturer.
Manufacturer labels differed in how they indicated date ranging from a month and year stamped on the tag, to no indication of date (very few like this) to a year being printed on the tag with a month then stamped before the year (I only found Mehler examples marked in this fashion). Sometimes the month was spelled out but abbreviated, sometimes is was indicated with a number. Likewise, sometimes the year included a 19 but sometimes it did not.
Most were size II but a few were size I.
Some tags (not many) had one or more inspector stamps applied (typical eagle with wings surrounding inspector number).
Just a very few had one or two extraneous letters stamped on or near the manufacturer tag.
If anyone cares enough and wants pictures, I can take a few. However, due to the significant number of variations (even within the same manufacturer), I can't post every combination. I'll be selling these soon and the likelihood of someone crazy enough to look at this many ponchos at one time again is probably not going to happen any time soon. So, if you want any information, now is the time to ask.
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