Cyprus made field jacket

I picked this up a few months back from of all places, Ukraine. I've seen a few of these over the years, mostly with a button in pile or M65 type liner, but I've never seen one of these with a crimson cotton liner and batting sewn behind (either cotton or polyester).
The style is very much an M43 or M51 style, heavy zip and buttons. I'm thinking late 80s or early 90s period and nice herringbone lizard fabric. 

This fabric has been in constant production for decades, much of it traditionally going to clothe African forces. I'm not an expert in that area, but it does seem to be on the decline.

For sure this is a commercial piece, but it looks to be a very well made one. What country was it made in? That might help determine the date. My guess is 1990s or early 2000s.

Steve

It has a tag "Made in Cyprus". Sorry, I didn't get a good picture of it (I'll try to take one and add to it tomorrow). I think it's one of the early Cyprus National Guard pieces adopted in the late 80s or early 90s. The story I've pieced together, was that they wore Greek Lizard pattern, often made in Greece, but also some that was manufactured on Cyprus itself. I can't remember when they adopted the new camo pattern uniforms exactly though, so you may very well be correct on the timeframe. I'm still trying to figure out if Greece has a hunting culture like France does, and if they made Lizard camo stuff for hunters like France did. I know they have a fair amount of commercial producers that aim their products to the Greek military and the like. I'm also not sure if Cyprus or Greece created stuff for military export either. That would be a fun mystery to solve

CollectinSteve wrote:This fabric has been in constant production for decades, much of it traditionally going to clothe African forces.  I'm not an expert in that area, but it does seem to be on the decline.

I've noticed this lately with how much Lizard is hitting the markets. I think a lot of countries are adopting multiscam or digital crap and with that, a lot of Lizard is hitting the market. I've also picked up some from Ukraine too. Which makes me wonder if it's getting dumped off as military aid or the like.

LizardCollector wrote:It has a tag "Made in Cyprus". Sorry, I didn't get a good picture of it (I'll try to take one and add to it tomorrow). I think it's one of the early Cyprus National Guard pieces adopted in the late 80s or early 90s. The story I've pieced together, was that they wore Greek Lizard pattern, often made in Greece, but also some that was manufactured on Cyprus itself. I can't remember when they adopted the new camo pattern uniforms exactly though, so you may very well be correct on the timeframe. I'm still trying to figure out if Greece has a hunting culture like France does, and if they made Lizard camo stuff for hunters like France did. I know they have a fair amount of commercial producers that aim their products to the Greek military and the like. I'm also not sure if Cyprus or Greece created stuff for military export either. That would be a fun mystery to solve

Generally if a tag is in English from a non-English speaking country it is commercial in nature. However, that doesn't mean it isn't used in service unofficially or even semi-officially. It just means that unless there's direct evidence of its use we should err on the side of caution and consider it commercial.

As for hunting culture, there seems to be at least some of it everywhere. The culture is also not limited to the borders of a specific country. Therefore, even if Country X has just about no hunting culture it doesn't preclude a company from there making hunter items for export markets.

Niche companies may make some money off such items, domestically or abroad, for a while and then go out of business or do something else, leaving behind few surviving examples. I had a hunter's jacket made out of French style Lizard camo that was made in Portugal, IIRC. I have no idea where it went in its life, however it was very well used and absolutely, without a doubt, made for hunters.

Steve

You make very good points Steve. I know a lot of military fabric often gets dumped on the market or companies with contracts have surplus fabric and try to make items to use up that surplus stuff. There's also the hunting market, the export market and even the collectors market. You made a good point that hadn't crossed my mind and that was the English tag. I know Cyprus also speaks English due to commonwealth status, but majority of the surplus is tagged in Greek. There's also British military bases on the island, so who knows. Maybe a souvenir jacket, maybe an export, maybe commercial to cash in on left over fabric? We could have a lot of answers, however, the price was right, she's a beauty, and I have no regrets haha