Navy Officer unform help? USN Commander

[k98_man]

At a local estate sale I have found an item they are calling a Navy officer's uniform. I have yet to get the full details, but I will call tommorrow morning before going. I have no experience with U.S stuff so any help would be great here.

 

They say it's just a uniform jacket with "stripes on the side". It may not even be world war II, but that is what they said.

 

What would be a general cost of any kind of navy officer jacket? I know you all have absolutely no information on this particular one, but any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

 

Thanks so much,

Mansal

[Bob Hudson]

At a local estate sale I have found an item they are calling a Navy officer's uniform. I have yet to get the full details, but I will call tommorrow morning before going. I have no experience with U.S stuff so any help would be great here.

 

They say it's just a uniform jacket with "stripes on the side". It may not even be world war II, but that is what they said.

 

What would be a general cost of any kind of navy officer jacket? I know you all have absolutely no information on this particular one, but any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

 

Thanks so much,

Mansal

 

 

Here's a photo of a US Navy officer's dress blue jacket. I find a lot of these in local thrift stores and sell them on ebay for about $40-45. The stripes on the sleeve show the officers rank (you can learn more about that here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States...r_rank_insignia ). Coats with Captains and especially Admiral's stripes are more desirable.

 

 

 

If you look inside the inside pocket of the coat you will usually find a tailor's label that may have the name of the officer and the date the coat was made, such as this one:

 

 

That tells us that this was from a WII jacket, having been made in 1944. This often adds more to the value: I would say that a coat that might sell for $40, will sell for $60 with a WWII date. But there are additional factors that could affect that: for instance the jacket might be named to an officer who went on to become an Admiral, or was a flying ace, or won a Bronze Star or some other such medal, but those are things that can take a while to research. The jacket with that 1944 tailor's label also had a set of bullion wings sewn to it. It sold for almost $70 and another almost identical jacket from the same officer, but one in Navy aviator green instead of blue, went for almost $90. Now had the pilot been an ace the coat could have been worth several times that amount especially if it had things like original wings and ribbons on it.

 

 

 

(Notice how the gold bullion on this is tarnished and not at all bright like the modern jacket shown above)

 

Estate sales will often overprice these coats because they see those gold stripes and think "Wow, this must be a real treasure!" That's especially true if there are some ribbons on the coat even if they are the common ribbons given to everyone who served in the military during any given period.

 

Oh, if the coat has no date inside, you can often get a rough idea of age just by the feel of the fabric: WWII coats were 100% wool and quite heavy but more modern ones are wool/poly blends and much light in weight and feel. Even some more modern all-wool coats are of a lighter wool blend, but the WWII ones I've handled all seem to weigh a ton. If you're buying from an estate sale, ask if they have seen anything indicating when the officer served.

 

Good luck. My two favorite uniform jackets are the Navy officers dress blue jacket and the Marine Corps dress blue jackets and it's probably no accident that the basic styles of each have stayed the same for many decades: they are classics.

[k98_man]

You are a god.

[Polygon]

These seem to be pretty common overall- I usually find at least one Navy officer coat in one of the indoor antique malls.

[k98_man]

It says Davis Clothing Manuafacturer in Mass. is this authentic WWII?

[k98_man]

Also,

 

It has 5 gold rings around the sleeve, not three. Worth more?

 

And could his hat make it worth a lot more? How much for both of these with the info you know. The label doesnt have a name or date.

[QED4]

There is no such rank as five stripes, Captain is four and Admirals use a very wide strip. You have to look at the buttons to make sure it is really Navy. The basic Navy uniform is also used by the Coast Guard, Coast Guard Auxiliary, Public Health Service, Coast and Geodetic Survey, several military schools, airline pilots, and probably others I can't think of right now. If it is not dated there is no way to tell when it was made unless it has Polyester in it then it is fairly new.

[Bob Hudson]

Also,

 

It has 5 gold rings around the sleeve, not three. Worth more?

 

And could his hat make it worth a lot more? How much for both of these with the info you know. The label doesnt have a name or date.

 

 

If it has five that look like this it's for a Fleet Admiral - as one source notes, "The rank of Fleet Admiral has been reserved for war time use only. The last Fleet Admirals were in World War II. Fleet Admirals during that war were Chester W. Nimitz, William D. Leahy, Ernest J. King, and William F. Halsey."

 

A uniform from one of them would be worth quite a lot.

 

 

Normally you'll see at most four stripes like this, which is for a Captain:

 

 

Or three narrow and one wide like this, which is full Admiral:

 

 

A hat and coat together are certianly much more desirable than just a coat.

 

 

Davis did make Navy officer's uniforms. I found one of their labels in my files, but I don't remember the date of this coat (or if it even had one - it probably did not because I always photograph such labels when I sell the coat):

 

[Bob Hudson]

Oh, one other possiblity is a Navy Midshipman or ROTC Commander with five narrow stripes:

 

 

If it's one of those I'd pass on it.

[cbuehler]

Navy officer "reefer" coats are among the most commonly found uniforms any where in the states.

Even ww2 era examples abound in thrift stores and ePay. I see ww2 examples go for as little as 15.00 on epay. Lt. ranks and below are unfortunately worth very little unless it belonged to a known aviator, submariner etc.

Admiral rank uniforms are hard to find and quite expensive depending on age etc.

One thing to be aware of is that Navy officer's uniforms did not change much and it can be impossible to determine whether a uniform was made in 1945 or 1960 without a date in the label, the materials and construction being the same. Weight of cloth means nothing. It was up to the order and tailor to determine the fabric used which was anything from Melton, Gabardine, Barathea etc.

I have a local SF made blue captains uniform made in 1942 that is light weight worsted.

I am always combing the flea markets and thrift stores and have found the blue and green wool uniforms the most common here in SF bay area.

I have gotton them for as little as 8 dollars.

 

CB

[Dave]

Navy officer "reefer" coats are among the most commonly found uniforms any where in the states.

 

Ahem.... they aren't called "reefers"... The "reefer jacket" is a shortened overcoat or bridge coat. These are called the "service dress blue" jacket, or simply SDB jacket.

 

At my last command, they had a thrift store with racks and racks of these for $5 each. I would give the rack a glance to make sure there wasn't any "old" looking material before I'd check the cuffs for tarnished bullion. Finally, I'd check the cuffs for wide stripes. In about 2 minutes, I could inventory about 100 SDB jackets.

 

As far as telling a WW2 one from a post-war one, it's almost impossible in a number of cases. I've seen PLENTY of 1950s and 60s tailored pieces with dark bullion cuff ranks. The Naval Academy had a tailor making heavy wool jackets for them all the way through the 1980s, so that goes out the window too. Typically the easiest way was to see if any were the elastique material with large ribs. I've also seen others in almost a corduroy material, but the vast majority are in a smooth material that isn't specific only to WW2, but to about the surrounding 3 or 4 decades.

 

As has been said before, there isn't a 5 stripe rank (unless it is a fleet admiral, in which case it's either a costume or REALLY valuable) so it's probably a midshipman jacket in which case it's worth......... MAYBE $5 at best (and only if it's big). Might be worth more if it's pre-WW2 or named to a war hero...

 

Also, Davis Clothing Company isn't a common WW2 maker (I've never seen one, in fact) so my guess is if it has the tag as pictured above, it's very much 1960s or newer and worth not much at all.

 

Hope that helps!

 

Dave

[cbuehler]

Ahem.... they aren't called "reefers"... The "reefer jacket" is a shortened overcoat or bridge coat. These are called the "service dress blue" jacket, or simply SDB jacket.

 

At my last command, they had a thrift store with racks and racks of these for $5 each. I would give the rack a glance to make sure there wasn't any "old" looking material before I'd check the cuffs for tarnished bullion. Finally, I'd check the cuffs for wide stripes. In about 2 minutes, I could inventory about 100 SDB jackets.

 

As far as telling a WW2 one from a post-war one, it's almost impossible in a number of cases. I've seen PLENTY of 1950s and 60s tailored pieces with dark bullion cuff ranks. The Naval Academy had a tailor making heavy wool jackets for them all the way through the 1980s, so that goes out the window too. Typically the easiest way was to see if any were the elastique material with large ribs. I've also seen others in almost a corduroy material, but the vast majority are in a smooth material that isn't specific only to WW2, but to about the surrounding 3 or 4 decades.

 

As has been said before, there isn't a 5 stripe rank (unless it is a fleet admiral, in which case it's either a costume or REALLY valuable) so it's probably a midshipman jacket in which case it's worth......... MAYBE $5 at best (and only if it's big). Might be worth more if it's pre-WW2 or named to a war hero...

 

Also, Davis Clothing Company isn't a common WW2 maker (I've never seen one, in fact) so my guess is if it has the tag as pictured above, it's very much 1960s or newer and worth not much at all.

 

Hope that helps!

 

Dave

Quite right in the misnomer "reefer" which I neglected to clarify as common mistake in reference. I also believe Davis Clothing is a more modern maker as well. Values of these uniforms vary so greatly depending on certain details that it is difficult say what one might be worth to an individual at any given time,

although unfortunately the days when one could find them for 5 bucks are gone.

 

CB

[Bob Hudson]

Quite right in the misnomer "reefer" which I neglected to clarify as common mistake in reference. I also believe Davis Clothing is a more modern maker as well. Values of these uniforms vary so greatly depending on certain details that it is difficult say what one might be worth to an individual at any given time,

although unfortunately the days when one could find them for 5 bucks are gone.

 

CB

 

These are fairly common at thrift stores here so I snap them up for under $10 each and they always sell quickly for, on average, about $35-40 on ebay.