1920s Marx Made Cravenette overcoat trench coat

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271654468359
This vintage coat was made by Marx & Haas in the mid to late 1920s. The Marx-Made logo found on this jacket was introduced in 1921 and was used through to the late 1920s. The jacket is wool gabardine that has been Cravenette Processed to shed showers. The process became a generic at this period for coats that doubled as lightweight overcoats and as raincoats. The “double service – for clear days for storm days” slogan of Crafenette’s was phased out by the late 1920s. The coat is a double breasted trench coat style, introduced c. 1915. It was originally belted, with an extremely high belt. It is unlined save for the sleeves. There are pass-through pockets to access the contents of your suit pockets without unbuttoning the coat. The fabric is stamped with the Cravenette logo

Chest (pit to pit): 23″ (doubled = 46″)
Shoulder to shoulder: 17″
Sleeve (shoulder to cuff): 26″
Length (Base of collar to hem): 43″

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1930s black rubber raincoat

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271654485422
This vintage raincoat was made in the 1930s, and from the specifics, was likely sold by Sears. It is made from black rubber, with a cord trimmed collar, back yoke and hook and eye closure. It is single breasted, with flapped pockets, a rear vent and rivets at all points of stress.

Chest (pit to pit): 23-1/2″
shoulder to shoulder: 20″
sleeve (shoulder to cuff): 25″
Length (base of collar to hem): 48″

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1940s Brazilian herringbone tweed jacket

http://www.ebay.com/itm/281484768615
This vintage jacket was made in Brazil and sold in the late 1940s-1950s. It is made of a bold herringbone tweed material, with a brown mouton collar. It was sold by Alfred – Kalil Sehbe S.A. – Camia Do Sul. European influence is also visible in the hardware. Though made in Brazil, the Astro brand zipper (with interesting stapled grommet style male end) does up on the left track as opposed to the American way of having it on the right. The jacket has a quilted lining.

Chest (pit to pit): 25″ (doubled = 50″)
Shoulder to shoulder: 20″
Sleeve (shoulder to cuff):24″
Length (base of collar to hem) 26-1/2″
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1960s Gross West Wear western jacket

http://www.ebay.com/itm/281484776616
This vintage western jacket was made in the 1960s by Gross westernwear for The West Wear, Billings, Montana. Is is a black and blue pattern, with western yokes front and back. It is half lined with a wild lining.

Chest (pit to pit): 22″
Shoulder to shoulder: 18″
Sleeve (shoulder to cuff): 26″
Length (base of collar to hem): 31″

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1910s The Gem Hunting vest

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271654532285
This vintage hunting vest was made by the Gem Shirt Company of Dayton, Ohio in the 1910s. The Gem Shirt Co. was founded c.1888, and diversified into canvas hunting clothes in the early part of the 20th century, innovating the usage of lined waterproof game bags. They were a high end maker at the time, making their products from an excellent grade of cotton canvas duck. They ceased production by the 1920s.
This vest is their budget version, with sewn on buttons instead of changable ring-backed ones, and without the side adjusters or buckle back which other models featured.

Chest (pit to pit): 21″ (doubled = 42″)
Length (front): 22″
Length (rear): 19″

For other vests made by the Gem shirt company, see here and here

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1917 Hookless Zipper- The first production zipper

http://www.ebay.com/itm/281479010615
This vintage money belt was made in 1917 or early 1918. It is khaki colored canvas, with a three compartment zippered pouch and a waist belt. These were generally advertised to servicemen during WWI, and were one of the earliest applications of the then brand-new Hookless fastener. The zipper on this one is the earliest production model produced by Hookless, produced under patent no. 1219881, applied for in 1914 and granted in 1917. An improved model came out later in 1917, narrowing the dating of this model down significantly. These early sliders were intricate, and were simplified significantly in later versions. The stop at the end of the zip is made from unstamped teeth, unlike later versions, where this was a specialized component. The buckle on the belt was made by Adjusta and was patented in 1912, and on January 27, 1914.

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Late 1940s Deerskin cossack jacket

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271647952876
This vintage jacket was made in the late 1940s from soft buckskin leather. Going by the unusual details, like the reinforcing stitching at the base of the bi-swing back, it’s safe to say that it was made in Denver, Colorado. The jacket has a Talon zipper front in a transitional style, with a large holed pull, unmarked slider connection and Talon branded stopbox. That helps narrow the dating down considerably, since these Denver produced jackets had their own unique style and did not follow the larger overall fashion trends the way mass produced jackets did. The jacket has flapped pockets with leather buttons, a plain front, bi-swing back, and a seam where there would generally be a half-belt, but which performs the same visual function.

Chest (pit to pit): 21-1/2″ (doubled = 43″)
Shoulder to shoulder: 18″
Sleeve (shoulder to cuff): 25″
Length (Base of collar to hem): 25-1/2″

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Late 1930s Mongolama overcoat

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271647982141
This vintage overcoat was made in the very late 1930s or early 1940s from “Mongolama” cloth, and was sold in Bozeman, Montana by Wagner Bros. It is a double breasted cut, in a heavy gray wool blend fabric. It has lazy peak lapels, a belted back, cuffed sleeves, and a 3×6 double breasted fastening, a very 1930s style. It has a 1939 Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America union tag which puts its manufacture between 1939 and 1949. The style, and the date range where Mongolama was advertised put it at the earliest end of this time frame. The coat is fully lined, which is somewhat unusual for overcoats of this period.

Chest (pit to pit): 22″ (doubled = 44″)
Shoulder to shoulder: 19″
Sleeve (shoulder to cuff): 25″
Length (base of collar to hem): 47″

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1940s Patrick Duluth Hollywood jacket

http://www.ebay.com/itm/281479077025
This vintage jacket was made by the FA Patrick Company of Duluth, Minnesota. It is made in blue-gray striped wool, in a casual Hollywood jacket style. It has three patch pockets and a wide collar. From the label and styling, this jacket dates from the late 1940s to early 1950s.
Chest (pit to pit): 23″ (doubled = 46″)
Shoulder to shoulder: 19″
Sleeve (shoulder to cuff): 24″
Length (base of collar to hem): 29″

A bit about the company, from a history piece I wrote for “The Fedora Lounge”
: The F.A. Patrick Company, proprietors of the Patrick-Duluth Woolen Mills of Duluth, Minnesota were responsible for taking the Mackinaw coat out of lumber camps of western Canada and introducing them to students, workmen and athletes across the United States. Early on, the Patrick Company were jobbers, making dry goods, primarily for clients in the Northwest of the United States in Canada. In 1901, Patrick began buying fabric from a Scandinavian mackinaw cloth factory in Fosston, Minnesota. In 1906, seeing potential, Patrick bought that factory and began making their own Mackinaw cloth, eventually becoming one of its leading producers. The fabric and the coats made from it were popular with miners, fur trappers, lumberjacks and hunters.

In 1912, Patrick launched a new, refined mackinaw design. It was double breasted, belted and sported a collar described in the ads of the period as a “nansen” collar. Though the term also existed then, we now refer to this style as a shawl collar. The coat was 35″ long and was available in 24 and 32 oz wool mackinaw cloth, in a wide variety of colors. Salesman Harry Harrington began to pitch the Patrick Mackinaw to clothiers in college towns. “It was not long after that that mackinaws became a fad with students generally, and as the college student invariably sets the styles for young men’s clothing, it quickly spread over the whole country”. The early mackinaw trend was marketed in a similar way to the current workwear trend, trading on the rugged associations of the workers for whom the garment was originally designed. The mackinaw fad boomed, and shortly, a number of other manufacturers sprung onto the scene, producing mackinaws of varying quality from a variety of cloths. Large quantities of Patrick mackinaws were sold through such high end stores as Brooks Brothers, Rogers Peet, Wannamaker, Abercrombie and Fitch, Brokaw Brothers, and A. Raymond.
It is around this 1912-1913 period where the name “Mackinaw” begins to be more associated with the short, double breasted, shawl collar style, and less with the mackinaw cloth material from which it was made. The fad lasted about a year and a half. Patrick could not keep up with the growing demand caused by the collegiate fad, and the inferior fabric quality of some competitors led to the downfall of this first-wave craze.

Seeing the end of the craze, Patrick-Duluth re-branded its mackinaw once again, refining its pattern and marketing it to farmers, children, hunters and outdoorsmen, workers, and sportsmen. Its durability, warmth, low price compared to comparable overcoats or sheeplined coats, made it an easy sell to these markets. Alongside sheeplined canvas coats, Patrick Mackinaws became the de-facto winter coat of railroad employees. To further expand the market, patterns were made for men and women, boys and girls. Patrick intensified their national advertising, placing ads in the Saturday Evening Post, Country Gentleman, Farm Journal, Woman’s World, American Boy, Youth’s Companion, Boy’s Life, and many more. The name of the product was shortened from “Patrick-Duluth Woolen Mill Mackinaw” to simply “Patrick”, in a bid to make their brand name the generic trade name on the market, thereby foiling the business of competitors. Their slogan “Bigger than Weather” was penned by Elbert Hubbard. Ads were illustrated by Peter Newell and Clare Briggs. In the years between 1911 and 1914, Patrick had quadrupled its production, expanding from their two story mill to a six story mill on Duluth habror, a garment factory in Duluth, and knitting and spinning mills in Mankato, MN.

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A guide to dating Talon Zippers

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