Feldjacke, repro or genuine?

[warshunn333]

New guy here, dipping his feets into the world of militaria collecting (especially german ones )!
Anyway, i bought a cold war era (style(?)) BW field jacket, from a vendor in japan last month and i'm interested in finding out whether or not the jacket's a genuine military issue or a modern repro (though i wouldn't really mind if it is, thing looks sick )

So, onto some pics:
general view of the jacket
front


rear



additional pics:
size tag


inside of the jacket

Here, what i find interesting are those "A" marks stamped onto the fabric. Any idea here what's that supposed to mean?

a close-up on one of them


What seemed to be the spot for the name-tag, appears to have been long removed. I mean, the peeps could've intentionally attach then remove the tag from the jacket to make it seem real, you know, immersive experience


Finally, onto the marking on the inside of the internal pocket


Any ideas whether or not what i have here is a genuine issue or not?

Thank you

[Nightwish]

Hello warshunn,

you bought a german "Feldbluse", part of the Arbeits- und Feldanzug (working- and fielddress). It was made of Moleskin/Baumwolle from the 60's to the 90's with some little modifikations. Yours seems to be a later model from the 80's.

It seems to be original.

The "A" marks it is "ausgesondert". This is for clothing wich is phased out and for sale by the VEBAG.

Best regards

Nightwish

[warshunn333]

Hello warshunn,

you bought a german "Feldbluse", part of the Arbeits- und Feldanzug (working- and fielddress). It was made of Moleskin/Baumwolle from the 60's to the 90's with some little modifikations. Yours seems to be a later model from the 80's.

It seems to be original.

The "A" marks it is "ausgesondert". This is for clothing wich is phased out and for sale by the VEBAG.

Best regards

Nightwish

Whoa, thanks for the quick reply!
Hmm, interesting...i've been looking far and wide for a comprehensive guide/article for cold war era german armies equipment online and i can barely find any

So, that seems to clear it up for me, thank you very much!

[Proud Kraut]

Nightwish is spot-on, 100% good. These clothes are sold for about 10,- Euro over here in Germany so I wonder if anybody is faking tem actually?

[Gordon Craig]

warshunn333,

You won't find any list of Bundeswehr clothing etc. om line. You will need to buy some reference books and you will find a list of that is available currently at star of this sub forum.
You can also learn a lot about the individual artifact from the label inside. Here is a picture of the label in your field jacket and I'll explain what some of the numbers on the label mean.
"R.+A. BECKER" is the maker. The "Q" is the order number used to authorize the maker to make "x" number of these jackets. The 170/180-95 is the measurements of the jacket. The Bundeswehr
also uses a "size" number, "6" on the white tag in one of your pictures, rather than search through a bunch of size markings in a jacket. The "/84" indicates the year of manufacture. 8415-12-155-9079 is the NATO part number for this jacket.
8415 is for clothing. 12 is for Germany and the next two sets of number refer to this specific size of jacket bu have no real bearing on the actual size. Reine Baumwolle are self explanatory from what was said earlier.

Regards.

Gordon

[Collectinsteve]

Definitely nobody is faking this variant, however Leo Köhler (and probably others) has cranked out tons of the last model trousers. I don't think anybody has bothered with the jackets.

There's 4 models of Moleskin, this jacket is the 3rd Model. The 4th Model is based on the TrVsu 84 design, but retained the standard Moleskin cloth and did not go with any of the alternates trailed.

Here's a rough date range for each model:

1st Model = 1963-1967
2nd Model = 1968-1973
3rd Model = 1974-1985
4th Model = 1986-1990s (phased out as Flecktarn was introduced)

Here's a thread I started in 2010 (wow, that was a while ago!) detailing the differences between the four versions. Unfortunately Photobucket killed my pictures.

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...light=moleskin

Steve

[warshunn333]

Nightwish is spot-on, 100% good. These clothes are sold for about 10,- Euro over here in Germany so I wonder if anybody is faking tem actually?

I got this for the equivalent of about $30-ish

warshunn333,

You won't find any list of Bundeswehr clothing etc. om line. You will need to buy some reference books and you will find a list of that is available currently at star of this sub forum.
You can also learn a lot about the individual artifact from the label inside. Here is a picture of the label in your field jacket and I'll explain what some of the numbers on the label mean.
"R.+A. BECKER" is the maker. The "Q" is the order number used to authorize the maker to make "x" number of these jackets. The 170/180-95 is the measurements of the jacket. The Bundeswehr
also uses a "size" number, "6" on the white tag in one of your pictures, rather than search through a bunch of size markings in a jacket. The "/84" indicates the year of manufacture. 8415-12-155-9079 is the NATO part number for this jacket.
8415 is for clothing. 12 is for Germany and the next two sets of number refer to this specific size of jacket bu have no real bearing on the actual size. Reine Baumwolle are self explanatory from what was said earlier.

Regards.

Gordon

Hmm, yeah, i'm kind of aware of some of what the markings meant, but thanks for clearing up the rest! I was mainly concerned with whether or not the correct fonts were used, etc.

Here's a thread I started in 2010 (wow, that was a while ago!) detailing the differences between the four versions. Unfortunately Photobucket killed my pictures.

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...light=moleskin

Steve

Yeah, i've looked at your thread awhile ago, and frankly got bummed too that the picture's all dead

[Klaus1989]

Definitely nobody is faking this variant, however Leo Köhler (and probably others) has cranked out tons of the last model trousers. I don't think anybody has bothered with the jackets.

Leo Köhler (or someone else) has faked the jackets too, but added lower slash pockets, which are not present on the originals of course, so they are easy to spot. Not know any others at least.

Regards
Klaus

[Collectinsteve]

Yeah, i've looked at your thread awhile ago, and frankly got bummed too that the picture's all dead

I had many hundreds of militaria pictures posted to several Forums over a roughly 10 year period, sadly all with Photobucket. To say I was a bit peeved at Photobucket for adopting a blackmail policy is an understatement.

Leo Köhler (or someone else) has faked the jackets too, but added lower slash pockets, which are not present on the originals of course, so they are easy to spot. Not know any others at least.

Good to know that there's something similar, but not a direct copy, that needs to be kept in mind.

Steve

[Nightwish]

Whoa, thanks for the quick reply!
Hmm, interesting...i've been looking far and wide for a comprehensive guide/article for cold war era german armies equipment online and i can barely find any

So, that seems to clear it up for me, thank you very much!

No need to thank - I share my little knowledge willingly !

Good to know that there's something similar, but not a direct copy, that needs to be kept in mind.

Steve

In Germany the olive moleskin clothing (trouser, Feldbluse, T-Shirt) has a very high reputation and many ex-soldiers of the "old" conscript Bundeswehr still wear it as a workingdress (private!).

There are a lot of shops wich sell very similar items. Some are very close to the original - and I think I remember one shop was advertising, Köhler has relaunched the produktion of the trousers with same materials and cuts following the old specifications of the Bundeswehr. But I didn't examine them.

P.S.

In Germany the clothing of the Bundeswehr hasn't a widespread into the collectors circles. So there is not much literature or other sources on that items.

So it is interesting for a german like me, to see the interest on it in overseas ;-) !

[warshunn333]

I had many hundreds of militaria pictures posted to several Forums over a roughly 10 year period, sadly all with Photobucket. To say I was a bit peeved at Photobucket for adopting a blackmail policy is an understatement.

Imgur's nice

In Germany the clothing of the Bundeswehr hasn't a widespread into the collectors circles. So there is not much literature or other sources on that items.

So it is interesting for a german like me, to see the interest on it in overseas ;-) !

Well, i'm personally interested in german things (especially their history) in general, so, yeah

[Collectinsteve]

In Germany the olive moleskin clothing (trouser, Feldbluse, T-Shirt) has a very high reputation and many ex-soldiers of the "old" conscript Bundeswehr still wear it as a workingdress (private!).

I agree! I wore out several trousers and wore a jacket (separate from the trousers!) for a while. My wife had a pair of trousers I bought for her and she loved it as well. Very much like soft denim, but tougher.

There are a lot of shops wich sell very similar items. Some are very close to the original - and I think I remember one shop was advertising, Köhler has relaunched the produktion of the trousers with same materials and cuts following the old specifications of the Bundeswehr. But I didn't examine them.

The cloth feels a little different and the color is a little "off", but the construction is 100% identical to 4th Model trousers. The label is the most important way to identify it as commercial production.

In Germany the clothing of the Bundeswehr hasn't a widespread into the collectors circles. So there is not much literature or other sources on that items.

So it is interesting for a german like me, to see the interest on it in overseas ;-) !

I can tell you things are changing The prices of Bundeswehr items has been steadily rising over the years, while other items have stayed the same or decreased in value.

This is happening with a few other European countries I know of where only recently have native people started to care about their stuff, but huge amounts of it have already gone overseas. So they have to buy their own country's items back from foreigners!

A Hungarian friend and I were talking about this change a few days ago. He said the market for Hungarian stuff in Hungary is going crazy. A Slovak friend of mine has me buy old Czechoslovak uniforms for him every time I find them. Almost all of Czechoslovakia's Cold War stuff was sold to the US surplus market in the early 1990s when both Czech and Slovak Republics needed money. Crazy world we live in

Steve

[Gordon Craig]

Steve,

You certainly are correct about Hungarian uniforms seeing a large increase in interest. Even though there was a lot of interest in them when I lived there more interest is surely present now. I just sold a Hungarian WWII tunic to a chap in Budapest and with the price I asked plus the cost of shipping and Hungarian customs duty, that wouldn't have happened a few years ago.

Regards,

Gordon

[Collectinsteve]

Spot on Gordon! One of my Hungarian friends is selling off his collection and the older the items are the higher the price. Years ago, as you say, people were interested but not if they had to pay good money for something I just picked up a 1938M shelter quarter here in the US and the going rate in Hungary was 2x what I paid (which was a chunk of money).

Anyway, on the one hand I'm glad to see people taking an interest in their own country's history. On the other hand, I liked having less competition for the rare stuff

Steve

[uscob]

Definitely nobody is faking this variant, however Leo Köhler (and probably others) has cranked out tons of the last model trousers. I don't think anybody has bothered with the jackets.

There's 4 models of Moleskin, this jacket is the 3rd Model. The 4th Model is based on the TrVsu 84 design, but retained the standard Moleskin cloth and did not go with any of the alternates trailed.

Here's a rough date range for each model:

1st Model = 1963-1967
2nd Model = 1968-1973
3rd Model = 1974-1985
4th Model = 1986-1990s (phased out as Flecktarn was introduced)

Here's a thread I started in 2010 (wow, that was a while ago!) detailing the differences between the four versions. Unfortunately Photobucket killed my pictures.

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...light=moleskin

Steve

I have to disagree, recently I had one in my Hands, very thin fabric and a Funny NSN what was, by the 1st Number a Technical Item.