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NOS US VIZ M8A1 scabbards dated 1963


Slufstuff
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It has been a long time since I posted here, but read quite a lot, great site!

 

I want to post about new old stock USGI M8A1 scabbards recently offered for sale by Dupage Trading. They are packaged two per sealed cellophane package. Definitely crinkly stiff old fashioned cellophane, very different from modern clear plastic bag material. Contract number DA-11-199-ORD-728. The scabbards are VIZ marked. The interesting thing about these are the dates on the packaging. I have multiple of these, they have a printed date of 8/62, plus a stamped date, in the one I pictured below, 3/63. Now this is significant because it has been accepted in the collector community that VIZ had no contracts prior to 1969, and followed the well known PWH and TWB marked scabbards in production. These pristine VIZ scabbards suggest that VIZ had a contract prior to 1969. I have been unable to find any information on the contract, it is not identified by Gary Cunningham or Ralph Cobb in their published works regarding the PWH, TWB, or VIZ manufactured scabbards.

 

If anybody here can find the particulars on this contract, I would appreciate you posting the info here. In the absence of contradictory evidence, I believe VIZ produced more scabbards than previously thought, and at a much earlier date.

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That's really interesting.  I saw your post this morning and went to the Dupage Trading site.  Of course they were sold out.  As you know, the information about these VIZ scabbards is scarce. It is quite odd that the VIZ scabbards would come out in 1962 and 1963 without anyone noticing. That's a year before the first M7 contract with Milpar.  Before that, the Colt supplied M7s were used which had their own scabbards.  The DT site also showed dates of 1967 -68, but did not mention which manufacturers were available.  Do you think all of them were VIZ?  Thanks for showing them.

Marv

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I purchased several of these, one was a cellophane wrapped PWH with a 6/68 date and a contract number of DAAF03-67-F-0002. All the others were just like the one pictured above, VIZ marked scabbards. Since the DT ad said 1967-68 dates, I would surmise that they had a number of the PWH packages. I did not request anything special, these were luck of the draw. I agree with you, these are very interesting and throw a new light on the whole Vietnam era scabbard situation. If VIZ did in fact have a 1969 contract, I would love to see one in original package to compare to the one above.

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Slufstuff, thanks for sharing this.  Nothing like documentation to move forward in wondering what did and did not happen.  I'm going to link a couple of posts archived here that I believe are related.  One by Gary Cunningham posted after the publication of his last book.  The other one from Misfit 45, (Marv)  that contributed to Gary's work.

 

 

 

I wish Bayonetman was around to see this.  I hope Marysdad stops by too.

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One of my packages had a tear in the back, so I removed one of the VIZ scabbards, I figured it will do no further harm as I can still place it back in the package.

 

Below are a couple of pictures, I do not want to bend it fully open since it will be going back into the package. It has no VP markings on the throat anywhere that I can find. No VP markings, or markings of any kind on the body (I moved the laces around, could see pretty much all of the body.). Throat looks to be the later "deeper" webbing extension. Otherwise, this looks like other VIZ scabbards I have in my collection, other than being new unused condition.

 

The shiny specks on the body are tiny pieces of the package, it is very fragile. No surprise this one developed a tear.

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I've only seen or heard of the Beckwith/Victory markings on some of the WD sheaths.  Maybe WD got some supplies from old Victory stock and some from VIZ?  The VIZ markings on the VIZ/WD sheaths do line up directly under the M in M8A1 just like the plain VIZ ones do.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just a couple more thoughts on the VIZ scabbards. The cellophane packages are similar to the later PWH cellophane packing used as an inner package for the card board box outer packing. So it would follow these VIZ cellophane packs came inside card board boxes as well. It would be nice if one of those surfaced as well.

 

Second, Gary Cunningham stated there was a small contract with VIZ of less than 50,000 scabbards in 1969. That small number (in relative terms, PWH produced about 4,000,000) should make VIZ a pretty hard scabbard to find. While PWH/TWB scabards are definitely most common, VIZ marked scabbards come up more often than a sub 50,000 contract would suggest. I  personally sorted through several hundred M8A1 scabbards purchased from the old Uncle Sams Retail Outlet a few years ago. It is anecdotal, but I saw roughly 8-10% of the surplus M8A1 scabbards being VIZ produced. My suspicion is the 1962 VIZ contract was for far more than 50,000 scabbards. It will need further research to come up with the exact number.

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3 hours ago, Slufstuff said:

Just a couple more thoughts on the VIZ scabbards. The cellophane packages are similar to the later PWH cellophane packing used as an inner package for the card board box outer packing. So it would follow these VIZ cellophane packs came inside card board boxes as well. It would be nice if one of those surfaced as well.

 

Second, Gary Cunningham stated there was a small contract with VIZ of less than 50,000 scabbards in 1969. That small number (in relative terms, PWH produced about 4,000,000) should make VIZ a pretty hard scabbard to find. While PWH/TWB scabards are definitely most common, VIZ marked scabbards come up more often than a sub 50,000 contract would suggest. I  personally sorted through several hundred M8A1 scabbards purchased from the old Uncle Sams Retail Outlet a few years ago. It is anecdotal, but I saw roughly 8-10% of the surplus M8A1 scabbards being VIZ produced. My suspicion is the 1962 VIZ contract was for far more than 50,000 scabbards. It will need further research to come up with the exact number.

Man when did Uncle Sams have those?  I used to go to their warehouse/store in Columbus and never saw those in their last few years of existence.  Did find some other decent things at good prices.

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It was during the last three years USRO was in operation. All bought on the internet prior to USRO stopping all bayonet sales. Best deal I ever got was 35 M8A1 scabbards for $5 each with free shipping. They were advertised as issued fair-to-good condition, but were all like new unissued. I also got lots of M8A1 scabbards when they ran internet specials on M7 bayonets with scabbards. Once USRO stopped selling bayonets, I bought more M7's with M8A1 scabbards at Midway, but never as good a deal as USRO offered.

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7 hours ago, Slufstuff said:

It was during the last three years USRO was in operation. All bought on the internet prior to USRO stopping all bayonet sales. Best deal I ever got was 35 M8A1 scabbards for $5 each with free shipping. They were advertised as issued fair-to-good condition, but were all like new unissued. I also got lots of M8A1 scabbards when they ran internet specials on M7 bayonets with scabbards. Once USRO stopped selling bayonets, I bought more M7's with M8A1 scabbards at Midway, but never as good a deal as USRO offered.

I think when they actually opened up the walk in store part of their warehouse they were already done with selling bayonets.   I did pick up a super deal on a Gerber multitool there.  They knew me by name when Id be walking in there Id go so often.  See the deal of the day and if it was something interesting buy it online and go pick it up there and browse all the other stuff they had.  They had some bins of misc stuff there for like 5, 10 and 15 dollars,  pretty good small odd one of finds in those at times.   You got a damn good deal for 5 bucks each on those scabbards, wish I saw that online.  I usually checked it pretty often too.

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  • 4 months later...

I am bumping this post for reference to the VIZ/WD scabbard topic. I have no new info, but encourage everybody to check any of their sealed M8A1 cardboard boxes for the VIZ 1963 contract number. It would be very helpful to find out what quantity was procured under the 1963 contract.

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