Edward53

"British Army beret" on sale by Monsieur Hogspear - no it's not, it's a CD beret with the CD markings folded out of sight in not one, but both photos of the interior. I'm sure that's pure coincidence and not a cynical attempt to make a few £ more. Compare with another listing in the image below, which btw also claims to be Army but at least the CD code is plainly visible.

Imperial Russian is my guess.

Sold for £171.....

I'm struggling to see the originality in this piece of kit. It bears no resemblance to any of the known patterns and is identical to the dozens of aged fake trench clubs with various dates and regimental markings churned out by the Delville Wood fake factory, with which knowledgable collectors of WW1 British militaria are well acquainted. I assume this is an honest mistake and that the listing will now be ended while the dubious provenance is investigated.

It says RAD Abt (in a Germanic font) which I take to mean Reichs Arbeitsdienst, Abteilung... which means Reich Labour Service, Department..... So I think that it is a WW2 German tea towel.

Here's my set. The utility pouch took a lot of finding.

I know this is an old post, but..... I don't have relatives here but I have visited the cemetery at Madingley twice and I fully agree with your comment. Let's face it, when it comes to museums and memorials the Americans are second to none. A tremendously impressive and moving place that is well worth a visit.

Yes clearly 1990-something, 6 or 8 apparently. No contract number so I can't add anything to that.

A photo of the label or markings would help.

Don't know what those are but the contract number is early 90s. Surely the 36 must be 76, 86 or 96, can't imagine a 36cm waist!

These two pouches came to me as a pair on an otherwise standard 90 pattern set. The LH pouch differs from 90 patt in having a gate buckle in place of the front D ring and is presumably a trials piece. The RH pouch has square flap corners as above. (While I'm here, if anyone has a spare trials utility pouch in very good condition....LH or RH, I don't care!)

It's not usually difficult to tell private purchase from issue items. If it has no contract number it's not ex-MoD. Very, very occasionally clothing turns up with a spurious contract number but too infrequently to have much impact. Ditto spurious NSNs, though even a real one of those doesn't make a garment ex-M0D.

CWCW is indeed Silvermans and the number under CWCW isn't a contract number but washing instructions spec SC/UK/3698, which used to appear on cotton garments of the 70s to 90s. I'm not aware of Silvermans ever having a UK MOD contract (CWC is Cabot Watch Company), but like SASS and Arktis they certainly produced lookalike windproofs which were bought by individual soldiers out of their own pocket. Difficult to date the above smock but my guess would be early 90s.

I think that is an Op Granby helmet.

Looks like a contract for a Middle Eastern army, Omani perhaps.

Jerry, you are right. I'd been referring to my master list on my PC and I wondered where you were getting 1983 from. Looking again at my original post, I can see that I'd unfortunately made a typo and put 1983 for one of the SL31s instead of the actual date, which was 1985. I've now edited it accordingly. I'm sorry for the confusion this has caused and I hope you didn't buy the para smock purely on that basis.

My list puts the first SL contract in 1985 and this smock around 1987. These were often worn in Op Granby, mostly but not always by tank crews. Are you sure the FFD pocket hasn't been removed? Sadly this is sometimes done to deceive. Edited To Add: the label looks like 31b, which para smocks of this period always seem to be. I think Compton Webb Headdress and J Compton Sons and Webb were different arms of the same company, not certain about that.

Reverting to my original post of 2014, an Arctic smock did eventually turn up.

They still crop up occasionally but have never been common. One sold on ebay a month ago for £22 here, a good size but with some paint marks. I think that as Scotch Harry says, they did drop right down and could be had for a tenner or so but have since gone up again. I've also just got the two so no spares here I'm afraid.

That one below looks very familiar...(goes off to check his wardrobe) - yes, still there! It is almost certainly 1979 but might just be 1980. Obviously I can see how CT1A seems odd considering 2, 3 and 4 are all pre-90s, and we can all have our opinions but for me there isn't much room for doubt. Those CT1A smocks are part of a whole series of mid-90s codes and I've seen no evidence to suggest that early codes were ever recycled. And if it were CT4B/1084 that would place it in 1982 or the beginning of 1983 at the latest, too early for a FFD pocket. Note also the lack of a maker name - another late production indicator. I don't see anything to put these smocks in the early 80s except possibly the shade of dpm, but para smocks don't seem to follow the same rules as combat smocks and windproofs. Anyway there is really only one dpm colour "rule": some colours are only late but no colours are definitely early.

As above. Good clean example needed to finish off set. All offers gratefully received.

There was an earlier one on ebay a few months back, not dated but with a clear A/78 contract number which put it with a fair degree of certainty to 1978. It didn't make much money but these are still (for the moment) unappreciated, the poor relation of the SAS rucksack despite early examples being considerably rarer.

After puzzling over how on Earth the old Size 04 might work, I'm now fairly confident these are the correct figures for the Imperial sizing system as applied to 68 pattern, windproofs and para smocks. Some people might find it a useful reference, especially now that the tables Clive posted are not available since Photobucket went down the toilet. I can't get the formatting to stay put but hopefully it's clear enough. The figures are "up to and including", ie you can adjust the garment downwards from this maximum size. The smock sizes are in cm and inches, the trousers in inches only but anyone who wants is welcome to do their own conversion. As you can see, Size 02 is basically a shortened Size 1, 03 is a shortened Size 2, 04 is a narrower Size 1 and 01 is a shortened and narrowed Size 1 and not to be confused with it, which I've noticed "accidentally" happening on ebay recently. Imperial to metric size comparison --------height/chest waist/leg Size 01 160/88 62/34 30/28 Size 02 160/96 62/38 32/28 Size 03 160/104 62/40 34/28 Size 04 170/88 66/34 30/30 Size 1 170/96 66/38 32/30 Size 2 170/104 66/40 34/30 Size 3 170/112 66/44 36/30 Size 4 180/96 70/38 32/32 Size 5 180/104 70/40 34/32 Size 6 180/112 70/44 36/32 Size 7 190/104 74/40 34/34 Size 8 190/112 74/44 36/34 Size 9 190/120 74/48 38/34

In case it is of interest to anyone, here's the date marking inside the GS rucksack flap. As they so often are, it is infuriatingly faint but in good light you can just about make out the last line as CQC 1979.

Isn't that the GS rucksack? See para. 22. This one's mine, faintly dated 1979.