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Vietnam jump wings (?), handmade


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Can anyone ID these jump wings ? Seems to be half-way between a pair of French jump wings and a pair of SVN wings. Looks handmade, brass with a silver wash, traces of blue paint to parachute canopy, black paint to wings. Width is 3.1/2 ins.

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post-4733-1240943717.jpg

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American Graffiti

Hi P,

 

nice wings kinda look like beercan DI, ie. cheaply made Vietnamese insignia. Funny little star hanging on the bottom!

 

Where did you get these babies from then?

 

AG

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Hi P,

 

nice wings kinda look like beercan DI, ie. cheaply made Vietnamese insignia. Funny little star hanging on the bottom!

 

Where did you get these babies from then?

 

AG

 

greetings AG - ...rummaged from the £2 bin of assorted staybrite buttons etc from a London coins and medals dealer....

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vintageproductions

I might be wrong but they do not look Asian made. They look more like some of the Middle Eastern airborne wings.

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I might be wrong but they do not look Asian made. They look more like some of the Middle Eastern airborne wings.

 

I believe you are correct. I think it might be a Syrian paratrooper wing.

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Very unusual, what ever they are. I went through two of Bragg and Turner's books on Parachute badges and came up with nothing close.

 

That star is the wierd part. If it had been mounted higher I would say someone was trying to do an imitation ARVN wing.

 

I am wondering if these are actually military. If they are, they are a very small nation.

 

In case you have hours to devote to this subject, here is a thread on another forum on international jump wings....

 

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=147395

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craig_pickrall

Thanks for posting this Gil. I was going to do the same thing so you saved me some time.

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I may have spoken too soon. In Bragg and Turner's "Parachute Wings", there is an unidentified Thai wing that looks somewhat like this one (pg. 41, item 1463),

 

It features that star below the parachute.

 

Unfortunately their copy is a cloth subdued version, so I can't say it's a 100% positive match. Plus the number of chords leading up to the canopy are much more on your example than the one shown in the book. That might just be the difference between a metal badge and a cloth one.

 

Tom Clinton's old catalogs describe a Thai jump wing which looks like the USMC/ USN jump wing. If you ignore the star for a moment, this might be the same style. The star is probably an upgrade.

 

For those unfamiliar with Thai jump wings, they have so many styles and variations you would thing that jumping out of airplanes was a national passtime in Thailand!

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I am sure all of you have seen printing blocks in metal. Another manufacturing process is to make a deep etch on metal the same way you make a printing block but read write instead of backwards for printing. This is a simple and cheap process. One way to spot an item made this way is a flat top and all the etched out areas are the same depth. As lines come together any line work vanishes. Such as the risers in the parachute. I am willing to bet this was made this way and then painted. The process became big in jewelry in the late 70's as a way around expensive mold making.

 

While maybe not true that "jumping out of airplanes was a national pass time" in Thailand jewelry making is with hundreds of small shops.

 

Joe

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