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Great find today!


bellasilva
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Some of you may have seen my post from a couple of weeks ago regarding my antique shop find of the dog tags and some paperwork and newspaper clippings to Sgt. Clarence H. Paine, an aircraft armorer with the 8th Air Force. I'll post a couple of pictures of that group for posterity's sake. It turns out the pilot of the P-51 Mustang that Sgt. Paine was an armorer for recently authored a book detailing his experience training the very first Israeli Air Force cadets in 1948.

 

 

While browsing that same antique shop today, I was on my way out with a couple of ERDL coats when I happened upon a WWII Ike. I didn't think much of it but something made me turn around, drop the ERDLs, and give the Ike a closer look. What I found was a 6/12/44 dated jacket with a beautiful 8th Air Force SSI. The jacket itself was in magnificent condition, absolutely no mothing.

 

When I opened it up, what do I find?

 

"C. H. Paine 19161492"

 

I was absolutely ecstatic. What are the chances?

 

Needless to say I left the ERDLs and purchased the jacket. It is now hanging proudly on my display wall with Paine's 42-43 dated dog tags hanging around it. Enjoy!

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RustyCanteen

Great find!

 

It's always nice to see items reunited, hopefully you'll be able to find more to re-assemble the grouping.

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Thanks! Sabrejet, I'm not really well versed on patches yet. How do you tell the patch is British made?

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Well...I'm British (which helps!) and a long-time patch collector. You just get to know these things! Here's a similar one on one of my uniforms.

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Well...I'm British (which helps!) and a long-time patch collector. You just get to know these things! Here's a similar one on one of my uniforms.

That works! Thanks for the comments gents. This antique shop is getting to have some killer militaria.

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Sure is. I'm wondering if the vendor who had his items for sale had some sort of connection to Sgt. Paine. Needless to say I'll be frequenting his booth more often now.

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It's amazing to be able put back together the items after such a long time. Always possible, but seldom happens. Love the documention of the pics, Jack.

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Sure is. I'm wondering if the vendor who had his items for sale had some sort of connection to Sgt. Paine. Needless to say I'll be frequenting his booth more often now.

 

Talk to the owner of the store, and see if he or she can pass along a message that you'd be interested in anything else of Sgt. Paine's -- you might get lucky, especially if everything's been popping up a piece at a time. I hate to think of all the things put into stores that get split up, so I'm glad that the pieces will be staying together.

 

-- Jon

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Very nice and congrats on the latest addition! Sometimes I think some of these items find us. It seems you were meant to keep his items together.

 

JD

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Thanks for the comments gents. Come to think of it, I have to swing by there again. I remember seeing a wool enlisted man's shirt with a ruptured duck, I wonder if it belongs to Sgt. Paine as well. I'll keep the thread updated.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well gentlemen, I've finally learned to trust my gut. I stopped by the same antique shop today to take a look at that wool enlisted man's shirt I noticed when I bought Sgt. Paine's ike jacket. At first I didn't see it and my heart sank but then I noticed it was only hidden from view by a few other uniforms. So I take it down off the hanger and notice that it also came with a set of wool trousers. I looked on the inside of the neck of the shirt and what do I find? Well there's starting to be a rhythm here...

 

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Everything is basically stock mint. There is only 1 small moth hole on the shirt. Other than that, I am ecstatic! Here's the last couple of shots. The trousers are pretty early dated (January 1942). Also the shirt has the ghost of an SSI, presumably 8th AF.

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