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My last A-2 (hopefully) - Good Wear

Brettafett

Brettafett

Well-Known Member
Perfect!
Seeing as thats at the top of my seal GW list, would you mind telling me the specs?
ie what knit colour & thread? I know its Seal Horween. Assume everything else is std
Thank you
 
blackrat2

blackrat2

Well-Known Member
That’s really nice for sure and fits you really well
Will you try find an original puller for the zip or leave as is??, I know finding a painted ones going to be a tall order but I recall someone here painted there’s and it looked pretty good
 
Wz1999

Wz1999

Well-Known Member
blackrat2 said:
That’s really nice for sure and fits you really well
Will you try find an original puller for the zip or leave as is??, I know finding a painted ones going to be a tall order but I recall someone here painted there’s and it looked pretty good
Click to expand...
Thanks. I will just leave as is.
 
Mr. Mike

Mr. Mike

Well-Known Member
A Bold Move! – Part I/III (preface)

A few years back (before I joined this forum) I even thought that GoodWear was already out of business as I never received any feedback, disregarding which channel I chose (Mail, FB, phone …) - until I received a very kind note from John sometime around XMas 2019. Then I started reading all your threads and very much enjoyed all your expertise and experiences through the hunt for the Holy Grail. It appeared a ray of light shining on John as the master of safeguarding it.

However, there was this tremendous waiting time and I was always running mad with all the related cost incurred for shipment, taxes and customs – which, oftentimes are taken per delivery disregarding whether you really consumed the limits set by the carrier (with regards to size and weight). Even worse: what if John’s delivery was really the Holy Grail? Could one afford to wait yet another 2 years for the subsequent order? And quite some time before Burt’s recent wise words were spoken I came to a similar conclusion – “you can’t do it wrong ordering with John”. So I went the whole hog and placed two orders at once with reference to each other getting them out only once the second is done.

This is where the sh.. hits the fan: In front of the master - which challenge would you pose, which miracle you’d ask him to accomplish for you? I honestly enjoyed all the seesaw and everybody’s fickleness pinpointing their respective Holy Grail in the forum discussions as it underpinned being in good company! While I was pretty set with the Werber #33-1729 as my personal benchmark for the various nice details you only find in this contract (more to that in Part II of this thread), with the second chip I embarked for nice russet United Sheeplined #42-18777-P – until something weird came across …

So after a patient waiting period I just received the big one these days which I wanted to share with you in more detail. Hope you’ll enjoy the following lines.

1649611631063.png
 
Mr. Mike

Mr. Mike

Well-Known Member
A Bold Move! – Part II/III (When you are set)

I will start with the fist in the box which is my personal benchmark: the Werber #33-1729. This contract was the first awarded to the Werber Leather Coat Company and is considered as being one of the earliest A-2 coming to life. It provides some nice little details which you only find in this contract, and personally I always liked the way how the cuffs and waistband were sewn onto the jacket with an outside stitching. Also the single stitched epaulets, are very appealing as they give the jacket a slight sportive tone rather than stressing its military heritage. Finally the heavy mechanical appearance of the early Hookless/Talon zipper is an all-time eye-catcher to me. Like in other contracts many of such details were skipped for efficiency and cost reasons in later war-time productions.

For this early pre-war contract I wanted to go for a lighter russet (pictures below rather reveal that in open daylight) and more golden brown knits but asked John to anyhow stick to the original as close as possible given all his proficiency and knowledge. The one thing yet to decide was which leather to take and as I already have some Italian Horsehide jackets I am glad having made the decision in favor for the Shinki-Hoersehide. Its structure, feel, natural grain and decent color shading is simply impressive and in reality far beyond what I can capture in the photos. John again hit the nail and created a perfect jacket.

I put some photos here for the generic appearance of this marvelous jacket as well as some fit-pics further down this thread so you get a better impression of the final result:

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Mr. Mike

Mr. Mike

Well-Known Member
A Bold Move! – Part III/III (When you thought you were set …)

Now, as said the second chip I originally placed on a russet United Sheeplined #42-18777-P – another very cool contract, with yet not unique but at least very rare specifics you do only find with a few other makers (like e.g. the shoulder seam underneath the epaulet, similar to Monarch e.g.). Disregarding my natural preference to pick rather contracts that have rare specifics my second order had some flexibility as John’s product portfolio just holds so many great options. Shortly before John’s production log took on me this amazing B-3 came up and I was totally fired up. So when John out of a sudden knocked at my door to get started with the United Sheeplined I asked him whether we can switch the order and convert it into just such an amazing B-3 in my size – of course he agreed. So we embarked for the planning which maybe is a much more interesting compared to an A-2 as there are so many more details to be sorted out.

The contract setting it all in motion was a Werber 1941 model but I had no dedicated preference regarding a specific contract or maker – only that it should be a two-panel back construction and a mixed batch finish to underpin its roots in the earlier war-time period. As you know earlier war-time models could still afford bigger panels and are hence easy to identify. Similar to the AN-J-4 I reviewed further up in this thread, I found that some jackets simply are great because of their mixed color scheme. While the AN-J-4 owes its mixed color scheme basically to the different materials being used, the B-3 in that sense is unique as its mixed coloring reflects very well the different stages of war-time ramp-up preparation and challenges to scale production. Overarching goal despite these set guardrails (2-panel back construction, mixed batch finish) only remained to stay as close as possible to the original.

In a first step John convinced me to consider the Rough Wear #17756 pattern which has a slightly smaller collar and a more square shoulder design giving it almost a sportive aspect. It was the right decision making it more applicable for everyday usage. Next we agreed to take back the thickness of the waist and collar adjuster straps slightly, taking them closer to how they actually were in reality (they have become fairly impressive with some vendors nowadays (Real McCoys has the thickest version of them I guess)). You will see how good that worked out with the comparison picture of an original I included further down in this thread. Lastly after deciding on the shading for the mixed batch finish and the American Sheepskin with golden tan fur we concluded that using an OD7 thread would tremendously add to this jacket. And of course it did – it just gives that additional kick to an anyway impressive jacket when getting closer to it revealing these fine details.

Although initially planned, we found that applying additional artificial aging should be skipped once the final result became apparent. What John put together was already filled with so much character that we decided to abandon this last plan and give it its own time to age in honor. ;)

O.K. that was a lengthy introduction and now come some photographic proof points of the achieved result. I considered it being worthwhile sharing with you that it was not just a brief order of just another jacket – here we go:

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Some impression of the structure:
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How excellent the OD7 thread worked out right:
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Some generic fit-pics (for what reason ever my iPhone creates much lighter pictures than the object photographed. The original tone is much obscurer like in the pictures above – but for the fit they are acceptable):
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And a comparison with an original Rough Wear #17756 – while not being the guiding template for my jacket it gives a very good impression of how accurate John’s reproduction actually is:
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Conclusion/Summary

It is once again hard to believe with which professionalism and craftsmanship John can tackle almost any task you can think of. Equally, and this has been stated in various other threads in this forum multiple times before, he has an eye and a knack for getting the measuring right. And this is probably the most important difference to some other high end vendors we recently chatted about yet again – you have to be lucky to come even close to such a result. Needless to say that, how ever he does it, John always ensures to pick hides that stand for themselves and beyond doubt will impress you. I could involve myself in the process of its making and believe me or not – if I had seen the photos of the two jackets reviewed above upfront in John’s photo-index (and before even placing my order I was scanning it up and down over and over again) I would have set sails exactly on these two.

So I found the Holy Grail and the mission got accomplished!

Cheers
M
 
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