Rather ridiculously amazing German motorbike jacket-heads up

[Metatron]

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Vintage-old-german-leather-flight-jacket-racing-biker-/270664117246?pt=Vintage_Men_s_Clothing&hash=item3f04d6abfe

It's the kind of thing i've seen periodically around here, but with a lot more detail!

 

[Traut]

What size do you think it is?

 

[Peacoat]

It's a size 40.

Interestingly the retainer box (and probably the chain) is a RIRI and the pull tab is a ZIPP. I don't know if it was common for RIRI to use another brand of pull tab, or if something has been replaced. The leather on the pull tab looks in very good condition, so maybe the pull tab was replaced at some point in the past.

The sticky front zipper gives me some concern. Obviously the seller knows nothing about zippers. Otherwise it looks to be in decent shape.

 

[UWEZ]

I hardly believe that this jacket is that old. I saw these jackets new, when I went to school in the 70's, thus this jacket is maximum 40 years old

 

[Michael Carter]

The red flag went up when he stated the shoulder boards were repos and the eagle wasn't original either. It looks really nice though.

 

[Edward]

I could be way off track here, but I don't think I've ever seen anything older than 1960s with those zip pockets on the forearms. Not that that's any guarantee, it's just something that occurs to me. Either way, it's a great looking jacket, and nice for a change to see a seller not trying to pass it off a a "genuine Luftwaffe jacket!".

 

[BellyTank]

It's a nice one. '50s, '60s even.


B
T

 

[cafebmw]

a lot of B.S. comes from the seller.
this jacket is an archetypical german motorcycle jacket from the 50's although this is a particularly nice one!
they typically had stitched shoulder and elbow padding (actually no real padding);
braided epaulettes (shoulder pieces), attached on the collar side with (turk's head) leather buttons (hard to come by as spares here in the u.s.);
moleskin lining rsp. the sleeve lining often a sort of rayon;
4 zipped horizontal front pockets; zipped sleeves;
the more fancy ones had (usually) red or white piping made of some sort of plastic (earlier ones had red leather piping) along the pocket and sleeve zippers; most jackets were black and dark green. brown ones were more common in the early 50's, a carry over from the 30's (black, dark green and dark grey were absolutely dominant in the 40's, wartime!!).
unusual on this jacket is the zipper pocket arrangement and the lower front snap button pocket; i guess they borrowed it from the buco type jackets.
unfortunately the brown leather hides had the tendency of getting an almost suedelike surface, resp. the glossy top layer would sort of peel/break off, something like you have on totally dried out horsehide. i guess it's the tanning process. but not on this one, it's in rather superb condition.

either the original zipper box came off and had been replaced with a riri; or the slider got replaced, the zipper pull looks out of place, i guess that's the case. often on those jackets the main zipper came from one company, the pocket zippers from another one (riri, zipp, rheinnadel, opti, etc.).
i suppose the jacket was made by Haelson in bruchsal/germany. they still exist but don't make jackets anymore. one can buy the original leather buttons from them though.
here in san francisco at La Rosa on height st they have/had a similar jacket with all the fancy stuff. i think it's around $700.

here are two german jackets from my collection
this one is from the 1950's:

here is a 1930's:

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