Wednesday, June 29, 2011

WHO NEEDS RRL !?? ANOTHER SET OF RELICS FROM THE 30'S

Pilgrim and Utica cardigans comparaison ....

Utica's tag from the early 30's....

 Former owner cut the cuffs on both of the cardigans ......

Pilgrim's button close up.....

elbow reinforcements......

Utica's pocket and mismatched buttons....

close up of the PILGRIM'S pocket ...




Fresh from the cleaner...these 1930's cardigans where found in a house that was boarded back in the 50's and was unvisited since . will definitely look great with a clean chore jacket ....

Monday, June 27, 2011

MY NEW ADDICTION

Amazing botanically brewed in Canada Fentimans cola soda  

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

BOYS WILL BE BOYS ...DELL 60'S WAR COMICS





















Boys will be boys .....
During the mid 60's,on both sides of the Atlantic ,boys were fed with Hollywood cowboy and war movies and all the merchandising coming along.It's a given that ,more or less at some point in time ,we've all read or seen the same comics,movies or TV shows .Who said globalisation was a new concept!???
 Dell Comics was the comic book publishing side of Dell Publishing, which started via pulp magazines. The company published comics from 1929 up to 1973. At its peak being the most successful American company selling 26 million copies each month in the 50's.The 60's saw increased competition for the company .Dell Comics continued for another 11 years with licensed television and motion picture adaptations including: Mission Impossible, Ben Casey and Combat  among the few long lasting series from this time. Combat had 40 issues and was my favorite. Toward the end Dell tried to publish some lame superhero titles and their version of trio the Universal Pictures monsters Frankenstein, Dracula and Werewolf .these are so ridiculous that they're a must have.....
Dell Comics finally ceased publication in 1973, with a few of its former titles moving to Gold Key Comics.


Monday, June 13, 2011

KELLOG'S WW2 AAF SQUADRONS PEP PINS






Here are some of my latest finds .I can't help buying them whenever i can get my hands on one.....
During ww2 the Kellogg's company, as part of the home front war effort and patriotic moral booster ,decided to insert a "prize" in the form of pinback buttons into each box of Pep cereal. Pep pins ,as the became known,have included U.S. Army squadrons as well as characters from newspaper comics. There were 5 series of comic characters and 18 different buttons in each set, with a total of 90 in the collection. Mint condition Pep pins, as with prizes from many cereal brands, have become sought-after collectables.The Kellogg's company placed 36 small pinback buttons each featuring a WWII squadron insignia in boxes of their Pep cereal.These were litho pins and easily damaged as they were printed directly onto the pin blank with no protective covering. They scratch very easily and rust even faster.....

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

ALL ABOUT THE US NAVY DENIM JUMPER

10/15 years ago,way before the sudden interest created by the "NAVY-ISM" craze and some designer newbies ,not much was to be found about his peculiar and iconic piece of garment .to tell you the truth ,not many denim collectors cared about it as they were plentiful.Over the years, i've heard and read so many uniformed opinions about the dating of such a jacket,even in Japanese magazines ,that i've decided to put together this post in an attempt to showcase all the elements that'll allow the reader to understand its evolution and function in the US NAVY .
The blue denim uniform, dungarees, is the Bluejacket's [NAVY's bible]working uniform.  In 1901 regulations authorized the first use of denim jumpers and trousers, and the 1913 regulations permitted the dungaree outfit to be used by both officers and enlisted with the prescribed hat of the day.  Officer's engaged in aviation introduced the khaki uniform and eventually it was the accepted working uniform for officers.  Chief Petty Officers were in time allowed to don the khaki work uniform.

So let's start from the earliest clues found ....... from the pages of the NAVY'S bible :the 1917 blue jacket .This ww1 picture shows one of the very first denim jumper aka dungarees .It was a pull over one ,with 2 lower pockets .it is clearly the forerunner of the more common ww2 "open front"one.....it was not worn with a chambray shirt underneath as they were not part of the enlisted men's uniform then.

On these ww1 shots sailors wearing the early denim  jumper...
this shot, taken around 1918 in Florida ,shows a USN work party wearing the newly created "open front" jumper with removable brass buttons.It's a clear evolution from its forerunner ,allowing its wearer to take it off faster and making the dungarees more comfortable.Some of the earlier pull over example also present .......  


Between the 2 wars there's a certain lack of information,but this article from the 1941 US NAVY uniform regulations book ,tells a lot about the rules applied to denim work blues
From the same book the official denomination....
Father and son in blues.....
On the waterfront.....
A seafarer's favorit too..
Complete pre ww2 set of blues .dead stock.....
Early removable buttons,up to pre ww2,were made of black painted brass..... 
For restrictions reasons surrounding the war effort,here is the second type ,a celluloid  version.It appeared early during the war.....
This the 3rd type a non removable button ,same as the one used on the denim fly . This type was used  at  the end of WW2 up to the end of the Korean conflict and exhaustion of the produced stocks ......
Two of the known pocket designs.The right one being the more common ....
So, many times i've been asked what are the side eyelets for !? NO it's not to adjust the waist size but to accomodate the clothes stops...  A clothes stop is a small diameter cord about 12 inches long with metal ends to keep the cord from fraying.  This short cord was used to tie laundry to a clothes line or other convenient object for drying.  Every recruit was issued a length of clothes stops in boot camp instead of clothes pins.  They ceased to be issued in the late 70's.Such eyelets can also be found on early wool pants and whites....