Compass Pouches

[2ad82recon]

Can anyone posistivley identify who made the M1943 compass pouches? All I have seen have no maker mark, apart from the repros of course!

[craig_pickrall]

Lloyd, I have 25 or 30 of those pouches and none are marked.

[Steve B.]

Lloyd,

 

I have ONE of these pouches, and it's not marked either.

 

Steve

[2ad82recon]

So does anyone know who actually made them ? or what company was contracted to make them ?

 

Because as far as i know only the repros are maker marked

 

Regards

 

Lloyd

[Bob Hudson]

There are marks on the early cases that did dual duty for first aid or compasses.

[craig_pickrall]

The combo 1st aid / compass pouch was something that came along in the early 50's.

 

As for web pouches this is the 1st pattern:

 

 

2nd pattern and the one Lloyd asked about:

 

 

3rd pattern that came out in 1950 when the compass design was changed and the size increased:

 

[craig_pickrall]

This is the type that is a combo pouch:

 

[2ad82recon]

Thanks pictures say a 1000 words. Did we ever sort out the mystery one with smooth press studs? The type 2 with smooth "Jungle First Aid Pouch" type dura snaps. Is it GI or Post WW2 "Allied" army? Also what was the waterproof wax covering on some of them? Was that factory applied or Field applied ?

[craig_pickrall]

This is the one Lloyd refers to with press studs:

 

 

It belongs to him and we have been discussing it off and on for 5 or 6 years now. His is the only one I have ever seen. I don't have any new info on it. I think our last discussion, a couple of years ago, was left as probably a European country's copy of US gear post WW2. Since the size of the compass was increased in 1950 I think it likely the pouch was made between 1945 and the very early 1950's.

 

I think the waterproofing was field applied as I have new pouches that do not have that treatment. In fact the pic above of the 2nd pattern show two that are not treated.

[2ad82recon]

Thats the one. But it is the SAME size as the regular GI compass pouch not like the increased size pouch.

 

What was the correct designation for the pouch?

 

I will send it on over for "evaluation" purposes.

 

Is it possibly as we discussed a USMC compass pouch?

[craig_pickrall]

I think if it was made special for the USMC during WW2 then it would also have the special belt hook.

 

I'm not sure if there is a correct name. The compass is Lensatic Compass so the case is probably Lensatic Compass Case.

[2ad82recon]

I agree, but there are a couple of USMC items that "buck" that trend isnt there. The USMC Corpsman Bolo Scabbard for one. The Jungle First Aid Pouch also had the army style belt hook and that was issued to the USMC wasn't it?

[craig_pickrall]

The JFAK was an army item that the USMC acquired through them.

 

The USMC belt hook was fine for the normal items but I can see it as to weak to support the Bolo. The shovel cover is about the largest / heaviest item I can recall those hooks being used on. I wonder if different supply channels were used to acquire bayonets, bolos, etc rather than normal web gear channels. Or was it that the web gear was made by the USMC supply depot where as the other items were outside contractors.

[2ad82recon]

Quite possibly, I mean Boyt made ALL the scabbards and they were an outside contractor werent they. Moot point as Boyt also made JFAKs and other web gear didnt they? Didnt Boyt also make the USMC scabbard for the 18" machete or was that just S Froelich and that had the army pattern belt hook didnt it ?

[Greg Robinson]

I was once told by a knowledgeable collector that the WW2 compass pouches with dura snaps were earlier than the ones with LTD fasteners but made after the ones with zipper. He said he'd seen several with dura snaps and they always contained undated engineer compasses which I understand to be an early feature of those.

[Bob Hudson]

That's true: the earliest ones were undated.

[Greg Robinson]

I own a "USMC BOYT 44" machete sheath with standard cartridge belt hooks. Actually, not all USMC gear utilized those hooks with the unique bend contrary to what the fakes seem to think. I can think of one particular scammer who uses brass hooks with that bend to them on ALL the bogus crap he sells.

[Greg Robinson]

I own a pre WW2 USMC pistol magazine pocket made in that distinctive Marine orangish tan color shade by R M Co and it'd dated either 1940 or 1941. It was modified to have a single pocket instead of twin tubes to hold magazines. After showing it around the forums a few years ago Carter Rila came up with the probable answer.....it was made to hold the WW2 lensatic compass. It's a perfect fit.

[artu44]

At the proposal of WWII compass, being an item you can put on a pistol belt, it's highly interesting to me. At present I've only a Superior Magneto 1944 bought inside its rubberized pouch plus a Gurley lensatic one. My goal is to buy in the next months a Superior Magneto undated, a non rubberized pouch and a zippered pouch. At this point I'd like to know when they started to made pouches rubberized. Thanks

[craig_pickrall]

Artu, I don't think the pouches are rubberized but rather have a waterproofing applied. That finish is also similar to the Mildew Resistant Treatment (MRT) applied to many other things.

 

Have you seen many of the zippered pouches available on ebay or anywhere else? I looked for one of those for about 25 years before getting lucky. I was at an antique show and found a female antique dealer that had one. It was the only military thing she had and she didn't really know what it was. The zipper pouch with undated compass was $35 and this was 3 years ago. I think they go for much more than that. The pouch being the expensive item.

[artu44]

You know I spend a lot of time watching ebay. Well in three full years I had occasion to see only two zippered pouch. The first one was so minty I suspected it would be a fake but when bids reached 100$ I did my 150$ offer. Too bad someone got it at a little more than 300$. It was some months ago.Crazy world!

The second one, well battered, unstitched and missing the chain (see pic) is sold a couple of week ago at 142.50 including a Gurley lensatic.

I asked Charlie Flick how much I could have bid on it and he told me: pass it away or bid only the value of the Gurley. I did it but really none can complain a relic like this. It could have been useful only to fill the gap waiting for a better one but after all is it worthwhile?

 

[Greg Robinson]

In my over eight years watching ebay I've only seen one zippered compass pouch sell for reasonable money. In that case I felt the seller was embellishing the story a bit too much and was put off by that so passed on it. Apparently others felt the same and it sold very reasonable.....don't recall the final value but trust me when I say it was way under what others have sold them for. I wonder now if maybe the "story" was true and it really did belong to a 1st Division Marine during WW2 and I made a mistake not bidding. Oh well!!!!

[robinb]

In my 35 years of collecting, I have only found one of the zippered pouches. I don't watch ebay for them.

[Charlie Flick]

The pic below shows my zippered compass pouch. I found it in Minneapolis at an antique shop. It came with a nice Gurley compass. It was the only zippered compass pouch that I have ever seen for sale, other than the rough one Artu was looking at.

 

They are very tough to find. Their scarcity may be due to the fact that they were an early war item and the stocks of them were depleted early on. They are not particularly robust in design and rough treatment in the field undoubtedly led to short life spans for these pouches.

 

Charlie Flick

 

[2ad82recon]

So the short life span and non field durability led to the Type 2 pouch, with the LTD fastners? I take it these type 2 pouches are first seen in photos in late 1943 right?