Invisible ERDL Flight suit

Now that its in hand , it looks very real , or a very old fake , even wear and fade through out , Badges and name tapes have been on there for a long time , no where can I find any evidence of this being pieced together ,I have posted it up on the U.S. forum and let the experts decide , BTW the badges are much more yellowed then they appear in the pics , and there is a bunch of Drak Brown stains I have to say look like old blood on the suit but you know it could be anything, you can see them on the inside , the lass pic shows the biggest on the end of one of the sleeves .
The suits zippers are YYK and Talon throughout , there are 2 of them that are another brand I cannot read , Snaps are Scovill .






Back of Badges and Tapes




Back of Pen pocket on sleeve.



Stains on Arm ,identical to ones on front and leg .

Well, this looks quite good to me! Key things that jump out:

1. No signs of previous badges having been on prior to these.

2. Shrinkage (bunching) of cloth indicates use/washing since badges sewn on.

3. And the clincher for me... look at the US jump wings, top right corner. See how it is sewn over a raised seam? See how that portion of the badge appears to have more wear on it than the immediately adjacent section? That's not something I'd expect to see on a fake because someone would have had to wear this around to get that sort of effect.

At least that's the way I see it Obviously I was really skeptical of this when you first showed a pic, but I think with Vietnam stuff it's best to presume an interesting item guilty of being faked until proven innocent!

Steve

Yup , I agree , I went over this thing with a fine tooth comb , as far as the aging and wear , it looks the part , but then again , there are some masterpiece of fakes out there ! lets see what the guys on the U.S. forum say about it !

kammo-man's opinion is that this is a fake .

Here is what I posted on USMF about this suit:

I hate to be the one to disagree, but honestly, from the photos I have seen on all the major forums where this has been posted, I don't get a warm fuzzy feeling about it.
I reminds me of some copy camo flight suits I saw in Japan a few years ago, at some of the shows. They had the same type construction, but instead of patches sewn to them, they were direct embroidered. I am sure some here have seen these on Ebay. One of the ones that was made the most had a FAC plane directly embroidered in white on the chest. They also has the same type of mis-matched zippers.
Maybe in person, it would look totally different, put from the photos, it is not something I would want.

Steve-I never saw the invisible ERDL's hit Ebay but I did see a couple in Japan, being worn.
Again, I might think differently if I saw this in person, but it is really close to those I saw there.
Plus with just a couple of washings or steamings, you will get the same effect of puckering on the back of these patches.

No worries Bob ,I just got off the phone with the seller , he got in a grouping from the vets son , he is going to look for some of the other items , he got it in the early 90's when he had a surplus store , I am on the hunt

No evidence of any modifications including pocket removal ,below are 2 examples of time period vintage commercial pieces for comparison , if this was a modified jump suit , it would show where the pockets were removed . not saying its real.

This is exactly why I don't collect Vietnam stuff My initial reaction was to be suspicious that it was a fake. But looking at the details I don't see the usual telltales that it is. And since I don't know squat about the specifics of stuff like this, I'm left adrift. Again, that's why I don't dabble in this era... I'd have a huge number of fakes before I learned how to avoid them.

I guess I'll go back to my original gut reactions and stick with them. It looks too new and it's too odd.

Steve, I hope you manage to coax some sort of provenance out of the guy you bought it from. Certainly it would be nice for you if this wasn't a put together.

Steve

You know Steve I am a huge fan of the invisible ERDL , so it matters not to me , either way for me it was money well spent ! I would not have pulled the trigger on a duck hunter beogam set as I am not a huge fan of the pattern .

Thanks for all the Input guys , I really appreciate it !