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AEF Service Coat (Rough Cut). 27th Div.


CHASEUSA11B
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Hello everyone

I recently purchased the WW1 cost on eBay and received it yesterday, I have several wool WW1 uniforms but something about this one is different. It is a very heavy wool and feels to be much thicker than the others I have handled, almost like a horse blanket. It has no liner and the construction seems rough. Not the most comfortable looking item.

It also has US and Infantry Machine Gun collar discs, a six month overseas stripe, a wound chevron, and a 27th Infabtry Division SSI which I believe is the Liberty loan style?

I was wondering if uniforms were made like this for expediency and cost cutting measures? Or is this just a standard uniform and I am seeing things?

Thanks for looking.

post-6201-0-47770800-1456547110.jpeg

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world war I nerd

That style of service coat is often referred to as a "rough cut" due to its rough and unfinished appearance.

 

I've yet to discover exactly when this particular style of coat was issued/used, but my guess is that they appeared late in the war. As you suggested it was likely the result of cost cutting or a way to expedite manufacture.

 

As to why they appeared, the specifications for the service coat may have been changed, calling for a heavier weight of woolen material, hence the coat's bulkiness, but this has yet to be proven.

 

Of all the Great War U.S. service coat types, the rough cut, in my opinion, are the hardest to find, and yours is a beauty.

 

Is there a contract label present or a British or French ink stamp? If so could you post a photo?

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Thanks World War 1 nerd, I was hoping you would respond. Unfortunately there are no labels or ink stamps anywhere I can find. There is the remnants of a tag in the neck but it's long gone.

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Nice uniform. The neck tag would have been the size tag.

Ah ok, thanks. There's also a staple in the right sleeve that may have had a tag or something but nothing I can find. When I bought it I was hoping I could find a name narked so where but I was surprised there wasn't even the liner

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world war I nerd

Annoyed by the fact that I knew so little about the 1917 "Rough Cut" Service Coat, I did a little bit of digging and came up with the following:

 

  • It was also known as the "Blanket Cut" due to the heavy weight of the woolen material.
  • It appears to have been U.S. made, not British made.
  • I found one example which stated it was dated February 1918, therefore that coat must have had a contract label somewhere on its interior ... perhaps on the inside of a pocket.
  • All three examples that I located were entirely unlined.

One source described the coat thusly:

 

Rough Cut Pattern of 1917 Type: Same as standard 1917 coat with the exception that edges of the pockets, hems, etc. are not finished and stitching is kept at a minimum. At times called a blanket cut. These are almost always very dark olive drab in color rather than the tan khaki encountered with the true 1917 pattern.

 

Here is a side by side view of the above 1917 Rough Cut Service Coat compared next to a British contract 1917 Service Coat. The most noticeable differences are the very rounded bottom on the lower patch pockets, the unfinished hems, and the very heavy seam where the sleeve meets the shoulder found on the rough cut service coat.

 

Right hand photo courtesy of Bay State Militaria.com

post-5143-0-24557800-1456560918.jpg

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world war I nerd

Interior views of the above 1917 Rough Cut Service Coat (left) and a different 1917 British Contract Service Coat. Note that both coats are unlined. However, the U.S. made (?) coat features olive drab woolen facings, while the British contract service coat features white cotton facings as well as an inside breast pocket.

 

Right hand photo courtesy of Bay State Militaria.com

post-5143-0-89893900-1456561282.jpg

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world war I nerd

Here is a photo of the interior of the 1917 British Contract service Coat shown in post no. 11. In this image the British War Department & Broad Arrow stamp is visible, as is the interior breast pocket.

 

Photos courtesy of Bay State Militaria.com

If anybody can post more complete information or better photos of the 1917 Rough Cut Service Coat, especially of a contract label or any other markings that may be present, please do so.

post-5143-0-66050600-1456561616.jpg

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I think these are actually the product of the wool supply 'scare' of late 1917, but I don't have any direct information on their development. It's interesting that they omitted the cotton lining customarily found inside; yet added a cotton twill lining to the collar which is not found in most coats. I guess even they realized the coarse wool was too coarse! Check the lower right pocket for a tag (you should be able to see the tag stitching from the inside of the coat). Another possible explanation for these coats is the extreme shortage of wool coats during the winter of 1917-1918. There were many complaints and investigations after it was reported that men in the stateside cantonments had to make do with cotton coats due to a shortage of wool coats in the US. We know that by March and April the more typical pattern was again in manufacture. Perhaps these were intended as an 'emergency' measure to quickly increase the number of coats available for issue that winter.

 

Chase, I don't know what the staple you found might have been; there were paper 'cutters' tags but they were sewn in place and not stapled that I know of.

 

Attached are images taken from a coat in my collection. My apologies for the poor quality of the images, but I was trying to make a timely reply. The coat was manufactured by John Hall Inc. of Chicago Illinois under contract 6243 dated January 16, 1918. John Hall held contracts for both wool and cotton service coats, but I was unable to find any information about this specific contract that was listed in the coat. Unfortunately no spec number is given either.

 

First we have the size tag in the collar that some of you might have wondered about. All coats had the size in the collar in most circumstances, and it was typically sewn in.

tag.jpg

 

This is the interior view showing what would be the inner lower right skirt (see the lower right pocket stitching?). To the bottom is a cutter's tag, and above that is the rectangular stitching of the contract label which is inside the lower right pocket.

 

interior.jpg

 

 

The paper cutters tag

tag2.jpg

 

And the January 1918 contract tag; although it is very possible that the contract date does not specifically relate to a separate contract for this modified coat pattern, but instead might be the date they were awarded another wool service coat contract which was changed to this spec at a later date.

 

tag3.jpg

 

 

Regards,

RC

 

 

PS- I have taken the liberty of moving this thread into the WWI section in hopes it will be seen by more WWI collectors.

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Excellent posts guys, very informative.

Here is a picture of the staple I was referring to in the shoulder area. I searched again and couldn't find any evidence or a tag or label ever being seen into the coat.

 

post-6201-0-56828000-1456607158.jpeg

 

And here's a picture of the upper pocket showing the rough construction

 

post-6201-0-04041700-1456607228.jpeg

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The infantry machine gun collar disk is a nice variant having small letters.

I like those too. I thought they looked different but I didn't have any others to compare them to

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world war I nerd

Thanks RC for adding shots of the "size ticket" and the contract label, as well as your take on why the rough cut coat was conceived.

 

I had forgotten about the lack of wool uniforms in the U.S. during the winter of 1917 - 1918. In fact it was so bad it was decided that, despite the prevailing winter temperatures in the training camps, all of the troops in southern camps would be issued cotton uniforms and only the troops training in the colder northern training camps would receive woolen service dress. The majority of woolen uniforms produced during that period were reserved for the men of the AEF in France, all of whom desperately needed replacement woolen clothing.

 

The winter of 1917 -1918 was also when the AEF began purchasing British uniforms as a stop gap measure until sufficient quantities of American made service dress arrived from the U.S.

 

For some reason, I had gotten it into my head that the "rough cut" coats were made late in the war, but the two known early contract dates (January & February 1918), along with RC's very plausible explanation would indicate otherwise.

 

I also liked the unusual variation of the MG collar disc with smaller letters.

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Brian, there are good reasons to want to think they were a late development, so don't worry about that. At least we can pin these on some winter 1917-1918 timeline until we can get better documentation. I'm puzzled by the lack of a tag in Chase's coat; there must have been one someplace, but it could easily have been lost or removed over the years. It makes me think that Chase's coat was made by someone other than John Hall Inc. It would be great if we could identify what companies made this pattern of coat. JProstak's coat is also interesting in that it apparently also lacks evidence of a tag. Usually they had to have a tag in order to show accountability to the inspectors. I can't really see them leaving the factory without one, but if there is no evidence of one I'm stumped.

 

I was actually just sitting here thinking how similar this pattern is to the normal cotton coat.. it makes you wonder if they were inspired by the pattern for it; or if it is mere coincidence.

 

RC

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Hi Chase,

 

 

I don't know; we sort of have a puzzle on our hands. We're aware of this pattern of coat, but it seems none of us really has a lot of detailed information about them. I guess until we find documentation, it couldn't hurt to sort of make a study of the coats we can lay our hands on and post various pictures to compare with other examples. If nothing else we might pick out clues that could potentially allow us to suggest a link between manufacturer variations.

 

I did note that my coat uses a heavy cotton twill lining in the neck, and yours appears to be a lighter weight cotton duck. But I'm not really sure that is anything but a trivial variation. For all we know the companies considered a wide variety of materials to be interchangeable as long as they did the job; so that may be a useless observation. And I suspect that it is based on the trivial variations in material used for gas mask satchels and straps in WWI.

 

RC

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world war I nerd

Here are the only other images I could find of the 1917 Rough Cut Service Coat, neither of which tells or shows us anything new.

 

The one on the left however was said to be dated February 1918, which would indicate that a contract label was present. It was posted to forum member New Romantic's website: AEF Doughboys.com

 

The coat on the left was posted elsewhere here on the forum (poster unknown). The only other image on that post was a close up of one of the breast pockets. Nothing in the thread was mentioned in respect to the details of that particular coat.

post-5143-0-65654300-1456626295.jpg

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Hi Brian, thanks for adding the images. It sure would be nice if we could find more photos of the labels. Frankie G. (Art Student/new romantic) seems to have dropped off the forum over a year ago, so I guess we won't be able to get an answer from him regarding the label in his coat. He hasn't posted since November 2011.

 

It's odd, but I guess other than vague mentions of dates the only label we have an image of is mine. There clearly are more out there, but I guess the label is considered secondary to many people, and they thus do not photograph it. It would have been nice to ascertain just when the contracts started on these coats. Was it as early as December 1917, or was January 1918 the first month contracts were awarded? There again we have the problem of not knowing how much time elapsed from the letting of the contract to the time the first deliveries were made. I know with some of the gas mask satchels I looked at, the contracts called for the first deliveries to be made within 60 days.

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world war I nerd

Agreed, the Army & the government was certainly capable of getting things done quickly when their back was to the wall. In January of 1918, it took just two weeks from the time that a sample overseas cap was received from the AEF for the entire production run of caps to be completed.

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