Unknown VN era beret

[Baker502]

I have had this for sometime, and have no idea as to what the heck this thing is. Any of you Vietnam guru's out there know what the patch and camo pattern are? The skull has alot of the same qualities as a SOG skull, but have no idea as to the meaning of the letters or colors. Hopefully someone will know what it is. Paul

[Baker502]

the inside, is really what throws everyone for a loop with the tiger pattern on the flash stiffener. Paul

[Baker502]

tiger

[gwb123]

For starters, I believe the NBCD stands for "Nuclear, Biological, Chemical Defense." This phrasing was used by the US Army Chemical Corps and their equivilants in other services. It was used to describe the training emphasis on defense agains Warsaw Pact nuke, chemical and bio weapons, especially on detection and decontamination.

 

Now the bad news.... I don't believe that acronym was used until the late 1970's, well after the Vietnam war.

 

I could not find a reference for this design, but I think it might actually be USMC rather than US Army.

 

There are a lot of bogus berets being made in Vietnam right now. Many of them are fairly crude by wartime examples, without leather headbands, rough edges on the interior seams, etc. This could be one of them. A lot of them have a lot of random patches sewn onto them ad hoc.

 

One test that many fake berets fail... they do not have the proper shape. Try placing it on a head mannequin or failing that try wearing it in front of a mirror. If you cannot get it to shape properly, it is probably a fake.

[vintageproductions]

The camo on the beret looks post-war. Not sure why the Tiger Stripe material was used, unless like Gil said it is post-war and in taiwan until the early 90's there was still some tiger stripe material that looks great in small pieces but horrible in larger pieces. The patch appears Japanese made.