Early Gemsco Flight Surgeon Wing?

[Basic Rifleman]

Could someone help me out with this wing? I couldn't find an exact match for it online, and am just curious to here what the folks here think about it. 

[5thwingmarty]

Being silver and not gold would indicate a later FS wing.  The snowflakes on the back of the caduceus are more associated with Amcraft.  The caduceus does not match those on any of the Gemsco FS wings on Bob's ww2wings website.  

 

I don't have an Amcraft FS wing to compare to, so I can't say if this looks like an original Amcraft caduceus that was attached to a Gemsco wing, or a cast copy of such a caduceus.

[Basic Rifleman]

Thanks! It totally slipped my mind about the gold/silver being a differentiator in early/late war. 

 

I have many items marked Gemsco Acid test and several Gemsco on card WWII items with snowflake pattern reverse. I agree the snowflake pattern is more often associated with Amcraft, but Gemsco certainly used it as well. The caduceus on this wing is marked "AC" which is more than likely the beginning of "ACID TEST". I even have pics of Gemsco Acid Test/Snowflake Caduceus'. 

 

All that said, I know very little about WWII wings in general. In your opinion, does the pin look ok to you? It seems shorter than most I've seen.

[5thwingmarty]

The pin does look shorter than normal, but I don't see any signs that the wing ever had a longer one or clutch posts, and the pin and catch are evenly spaced so I would say it looks like it is original to the wing.  Although the back of the wing is different than other Gemsco Observer wings I recall seeing, it looks pretty sharp around the edge and with the raised letters.  Unless someone specifically knows when this style of Gemsco back or caduceus came into use, I don't know that it could be more specifically dated beyond from the mid 40's to the 1950's.  The heavy drop in catch is often attributed to early wings, but no one knows if or when they stopped making or using them from older stock.