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Interesting Frog Skin Cover on Ebay


Justin
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The green thread is a good sign they were made after the 1953 batch and not just stamped WWII surplus I think!

I agree, these have the feel and thread work of being manufactured either late 50s or very early 60s i would estimate.....that green thread is unlike any WWII or KW produced cover......at first i was thinking they are pre 1959 like the last batch before the 59 Mitchells but maybe they are an overlap production as the Mitchells were being made and accepted/distributed.....kind of like when the Mitchell pattern was being replaced by ERDL there is production overlap or maybe the USMC was trying hard to keep the frogskin and ordered one last batch?....... :think: ..mike

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combat-helmets
I agree, these have the feel and thread work of being manufactured either late 50s or very early 60s i would estimate.....that green thread is unlike any WWII or KW produced cover......at first i was thinking they are pre 1959 like the last batch before the 59 Mitchells but maybe they are an overlap production as the Mitchells were being made and accepted/distributed.....kind of like when the Mitchell pattern was being replaced by ERDL there is production overlap or maybe the USMC was trying hard to keep the frogskin and ordered one last batch?....... :think: ..mike

 

Sounds entirely plausible Mike... I am perplexed as to why these covers were never discussed it seems before this thread???

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Sounds entirely plausible Mike... I am perplexed as to why these covers were never discussed it seems before this thread???

 

I had no idea they were out there till I found the original one (now in Mike's collection) I found on eBay!

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combat-helmets

Exactly Justin. I applaud your sharp eyes too.

Now I'm on a mission to get one of these for my collection !

Anyone that has one, please contact me for an attractive win/win deal!

Thanks !

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combat-helmets

Still researching.. Thought it would be a quick look up, but these older contracts are more difficult to research than their more modern counterparts...

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Came up with a big ZERO on the contract search! I asked our Government inspector at work for advice, and he said by the contract nomenclature, that this was too old of a contract, and the the government doesn't have to keep records on contract over 6 years and 3 months... All I can tell, is based on the stamp, it's older than the 1959 contract dated USMC Mitchell patterns, so all we can "assume" is that the contract is post 1953 and pre-1959... :think:

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Came up with a big ZERO on the contract search! I asked our Government inspector at work for advice, and he said by the contract nomenclature, that this was too old of a contract, and the the government doesn't have to keep records on contract over 6 years and 3 months... All I can tell, is based on the stamp, it's older than the 1959 contract dated USMC Mitchell patterns, so all we can "assume" is that the contract is post 1953 and pre-1959... :think:

 

Could you elaborate please?

 

Here is the frogskin and Mitchell, both with the exact same stamps. The Mitchell dates to around 1964 in Reynosa and Ken Kline's listing of cover dates. Wouldn't that indicate that the frogskin is of the same period?

 

post-14792-1346091186.jpg post-14792-1346091193.jpg

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I'd like to know the source of that contract information, because I couldn't find anything on the internet.

What I wanted was to look at the contract specifics. Who generated the contract, was it Marine specified, or Army?

It's the details i'm after...

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craig_pickrall

If that same stamp is used on a Mitchell and a Frog Skin cover I think I smell a rat. That stamp doesn't look like other covers of the period. We might need to rethink this whole thing.

 

Various markings from that time period:

 

post-5-1346186096.jpg

post-5-1346186226.jpg

post-5-1346186235.jpg

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I dont think something fishy is going on, what its starting to look like is its maybe an overlap production fron the early 60s (1964 some say that contract # is from?)....ive looked at the two stampings and they seem to be identical in every way down to the typeface, spacing etc so i dont think someone copied the stamp from an old Mitchell cover and stamped up a bunch of repro frogskins, these covers are well made and have the little subtle changes in thread that would appear as production got improved through the years of cover producing.....the quality is superior and ive had mine since way before any repros even started coming close to being acceptable, they were a joke back then compared to todays standards....so my vote is the real deal produced in the early 1960s .. :think: ..mike

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I agree Mike. The fact that I am aware of no one faking Vietnam era covers (it's the WW2 covers that the collectors seek, not a Vietnam era "knockoff". )That just doesnt make sense to me.

The green thread also is seen on the Mitchell covers, so the contract "overlap" scenario makes some sense to me.... :think:

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Not sure I follow this 100% so bare with me here. Is it possible the contract on my Mitchell helmet cover is a USMC contract? It's not like every Marine was issued a 1959 tagged helmet cover. I know of a Marine bring back cover that's not a 1959er, and there's photos where you can clearly see Marines wearing twill covers. If anyone is following what I am saying? :think:

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combat-helmets

Of course that's true Justin. The Marines initiated the Mitchell pattern and have the earliest contracts, but the other services procured them as well with their own contracts in the early 60's.

 

Craig implied the stamp on the Frog cover might have been faked, and I was saying that I personally had doubts the stamp was fake, because no one is faking post WW2 covers ( that we have seen at least).

 

I was saying Mike's idea made sense in that the contracts could have used up old materials, etc.. We just won't know unless specific contract details about the origin of the contract come to light. I have hit a zero in my research efforts to date.. :think:

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  • 5 weeks later...

Recently , I was lucky enough to find another one of these from a fellow collector at the WAF forum who lives in Denmark!....shes pretty beat-up with some torn flaps and a few field repairs but i love it!!....mike

post-350-1349020551.jpg

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  • 5 months later...
combat-helmets

 

 

I had no idea they were out there till I found the original one (now in Mike's collection) I found on eBay!

 

And thanks to Sgt. Dorango, it's in my collection now !!!! Love it!

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Glad to see you got it. As I told you before, still kicking myself for not getting it on the "Buy it Now" when I saw it originallly! Congrats

Bill

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  • 3 years later...

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