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Small volume contracts for A2s

R

Roughwear

Well-Known Member
Does anyone know which were the smallest volume contracts for wartime produced A2s? I have always assumed these were small contracts because of their rarity today:

Cooper W535ac23381
Werber 42-1402-P
Doniger 42-21539-P
Monarch W535ac23378

How small were these contracts? 5,000 jackets or less?
 
D

deeb7

Gone, but not forgotten.
The Cooper's an odd one, as the surviving examples appear to be identical to those of the consecutively numbered, Rough Wear AC23380 contract.

You have to wonder ... who actually made what.
 
R

Roughwear

Well-Known Member
Others think the same, David. This from the Acmedepot:
The original WWII era Cooper A-2, contract W535-AC-23381, is a rarely seen jacket, something which implies a low production number. Visually, the jacket appears to be very similar to the Rough Wear style, as based upon the epaulets, collar stand, collar points, and pocket flap shape. Furthermore, the label on this jacket is virtually identical in size, layout, and lettering to that of the Rough Wear 23380 label.
Click to expand...
However, the bottoms of the pockets on Coopers are usually bevelled unlike RWs.
 
Swing

Swing

New Member
Roughwear said:
Does anyone know which were the smallest volume contracts for wartime produced A2s? I have always assumed these were small contracts because of their rarity today:

Cooper W535ac23381
Werber 42-1402-P
Doniger 42-21539-P
Monarch W535ac23378

How small were these contracts? 5,000 jackets or less?
Click to expand...

I don't think the AAF or a manufacturer would have bothered with a contract for less than 5,000 jackets. I'd guess that Cooper and Werber were for less than 10,000 jackets, and that Monarch and Doniger were for between 10,000 to 15,000 jackets.

~Swing
 
R

Roughwear

Well-Known Member
Swing said:
Roughwear said:
Does anyone know which were the smallest volume contracts for wartime produced A2s? I have always assumed these were small contracts because of their rarity today:

Cooper W535ac23381
Werber 42-1402-P
Doniger 42-21539-P
Monarch W535ac23378

How small were these contracts? 5,000 jackets or less?
Click to expand...

I don't think the AAF or a manufacturer would have bothered with a contract for less than 5,000 jackets. I'd guess that Cooper and Werber were for less than 10,000 jackets, and that Monarch and Doniger were for between 10,000 to 15,000 jackets.

~Swing
Click to expand...

Interesting Swing. It would be great to have some proven figures to back up your guess. Surely there must be documentary evidence in the archives on the volume of each USAAF contract?
 
G

greyhound52

New Member
Would the Star be considered a small contract as well? Since we don't see alot of some of these jackets (Doniger Monarch for example) does that mean they were small contracts or they were destroyed etc during and after the war?? John Chapman always thought the Doniger was under 3000 jackets due to how rare they were. My unnamed Doniger W535ac29971 (I have only ever seen three of these to include the one I have) which means this one may have even been smaller. This is a great question and I am anxious to see comments on it.
 
R

Roughwear

Well-Known Member
greyhound52 said:
Would the Star be considered a small contract as well? Since we don't see alot of some of these jackets (Doniger Monarch for example) does that mean they were small contracts or they were destroyed etc during and after the war?? John Chapman always thought the Doniger was under 3000 jackets due to how rare they were. My unnamed Doniger W535ac29971 (I have only ever seen three of these to include the one I have) which means this one may have even been smaller. This is a great question and I am anxious to see comments on it.
Click to expand...

I should have included the Star. It is certainly rarely seen on Ebay. Is this a 10,000 jacket contract or smaller? I am amazed that no one seems to have researched the original contract documents.
 
Swing

Swing

New Member
greyhound52 said:
Would the Star be considered a small contract as well? Since we don't see alot of some of these jackets (Doniger Monarch for example) does that mean they were small contracts or they were destroyed etc during and after the war?? John Chapman always thought the Doniger was under 3000 jackets due to how rare they were. My unnamed Doniger W535ac29971 (I have only ever seen three of these to include the one I have) which means this one may have even been smaller. This is a great question and I am anxious to see comments on it.
Click to expand...

Doniger 42-21539-P and W535ac29971 are the same contract, same as Star W535ac28557 and 42-18245-P. For what ever reason, at different times in those contracts production runs different labels were used.

The fact that we've seen mutiple examples of all the contracts mentioned at the start of this thread says to me that while they weren't huge contracts, they weren't in the sub 5000 range (because if they were, we'd be lucky to see a single surving example).

~Swing
 
D

deeb7

Gone, but not forgotten.
Swing said:
Doniger 42-21539-P and W535ac29971 are the same contract, same as Star W535ac28557 and 42-18245-P.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that info, Swing ... I'd been hoping to find an example where both contract, and order numbers were known.

After the discussion with Andrew about which came first, I've been starting to wonder about the Perrys.
 
Swing

Swing

New Member
Roughwear said:
greyhound52 said:
Would the Star be considered a small contract as well? Since we don't see alot of some of these jackets (Doniger Monarch for example) does that mean they were small contracts or they were destroyed etc during and after the war?? John Chapman always thought the Doniger was under 3000 jackets due to how rare they were. My unnamed Doniger W535ac29971 (I have only ever seen three of these to include the one I have) which means this one may have even been smaller. This is a great question and I am anxious to see comments on it.
Click to expand...

I should have included the Star. It is certainly rarely seen on Ebay. Is this a 10,000 jacket contract or smaller? I am amazed that no one seems to have researched the original contract documents.
Click to expand...

In the past Stars have shown up regularly on ebay (I don't pay attention to ebay any more though) and there are a lot of them in the various flight jacket books. Tough to place a number, but I'd guess the Star contract was between 15,000 and 20,000 jackets. Maybe as high as 25,000. You've got a shop with 40 to 100 employees turning out A-2s, it doesn't take long to fill a contract, and I just can't imagine issuing a contract for less than 10,000 jackets once the war was on.

~Swing
 
Swing

Swing

New Member
deeb7 said:
Swing said:
Doniger 42-21539-P and W535ac29971 are the same contract, same as Star W535ac28557 and 42-18245-P.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that info, Swing ... I'd been hoping to find an example where both contract, and order numbers were known.

After the discussion with Andrew about which came first, I've been starting to wonder about the Perrys.
Click to expand...

Wonder what about the Perrys? W535ac23377 was from late '41 and probably wasn't in production until early '42, and 42-16175-P would have been awarded late winter/early spring '42 with production later in the year, and maybe into '43.

~Swing
 
R

Roughwear

Well-Known Member
I am sure you are correct about the Star as they do appear more often than the Doniger or Cooper in flight jacket books. Your views on the two Perry contracts seems to confirm my thoughts in a recent discussion with David.
 
Stony

Stony

Well-Known Member
This subject brings up the number of 55J14 G-1s made by B-G Inc. After getting the one I had for a while, J.C. said the production run by this company could have been in the low 100s as they rarely come up anywhere. I personally have only seen the one I owned in person and maybe two others on the bay.
 
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