Mint M445 jacket just off Ebay

[dujardin]

Agreed. Same experience here. Too fragile to wear and sketchy to ship. I had a beautiful Monarch M-445.
Sold it and shipped it from the US to Europe. The European Customs opened it and then tried to cram it back in the box and destroyed it. Cracks and holes all over. If your gonna wear it you better go repro on the shearlings.
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wowww, sad experience
ahhhh those bloody customers, they take our money and in your case destroy the jacket
it's enraging

 

[bazelot]

Agreed. Same experience here. Too fragile to wear and sketchy to ship. I had a beautiful Monarch M-445.
Sold it and shipped it from the US to Europe. The European Customs opened it and then tried to cram it back in the box and destroyed it. Cracks and holes all over. If your gonna wear it you better go repro on the shearlings.

You mean to say that this jacket was destroyed!!!??? It was a beauty...

 

[Skyhawk]

In my opinion pretty destroyed. It had a lot of damage. Cracks and holes in the main body. Bad enough to leave chunks of fur in the box. To my knowledge, You can't really repair wartime shearling and make it wearable. To go from the pics above to that condition just about made me sick. I can't locate the pics sent from the buyer, but that jacket went from wearer to wall hanger in one shipment. That is the last original shearling I have had. For now I am done with them. In the future I would like to have one for display though. Also a nice repro like an Aero or Eastman M445 to wear someday.

 

[STEVE S.]

IMHO, the Monarch's seemed to survive better than some of the others for some reason. i have a mint set i bought about 12-13 yrs ago including jacket, trousers boots & the original footlocker. wore it a couple times, but was scared to death of damging it so it has been on display duty since. i did want one to wear so sourced the shearling, bought a torn up original cheap for a pattern & made one using the new shearling & original leather parts. did the same with a b-3.

here's the original i used for patten/parts. someone had stitched a god awful piece of fake suede over the collar


finished product



b-3

 

[bazelot]

Fantastic work. I always wanted to do something similar. Instead I managed to find a wearable M-445A which I wear occasionally. You shouldn't be afraid to wear those 2!

 

[STEVE S.]

i have enough parts to do a few more if the shearling i sourced for these is still available. i think i may shave the fur down some on the interiors of the future projects as it rarely gets so cold here that i can wear these. they are VERY warm!