Polish leopard spot

Very hard to find - great acquisition!

That looks like a commercial item, but no matter... anything made in that cloth is super hard to come by.

Steve

Here's pictures of my new Leopard acquisition. You can see the pockets are pleated vs. the flat pockets of the pic that started this thread. It also has arm pockets, which the other one does not. As far as I know only this parka and a long jacket were trialed. The parka is the only one I am familiar with MartinD informed me about the other one) so I can't speak to what features it might have.

Steve

Neat! Looks like someone wanted to turn it into a tunic instead of a parka. Are the flaps for liner buttons still intact, or were those sliced out and repaired?

Steve

Yup! Everything is as it should be, except for the nicely done collar modification. I'm curious what the front closure buttons look like as mine seem to be a mix of original and replacement, but I'm not sure which is which!

Steve

Excellent! Standard bakelite military buttons. How about for the small pocket ones? Those also crested?

Thanks!!

Steve

They are not crested and are much smaller.

tlundberg1 wrote:They are not crested and are much smaller.

Excellent, that makes a lot of sense. On mine all the buttons for all the pockets are the same (or nearly the same) as the ones on the liner. They appear to be original. I also couldn't see the small crested buttons working for the pockets, so thanks for the confirmation.

Just to double check... since your jacket was modified, does it look like your crested buttons are original factory sewn or can you see clear signs that they were hand sewn on? It suddenly occurred to me that it's possible neither of us have original buttons for the front

Steve

Best that I can tell, they look to be factory sewn.

Awesome! Thanks for the follow up. That is the clincher for me. I should have some crested buttons coming to me shortly

Steve

I'm pretty sure the buttons should be as in other airborne jackets of the 1970s time, larger brown dish type:
http://camouniforms.net/index.php/eastern-europe/poland/wz68-green-moro/wz68-army-green-moro/airborne-uniforms/341-2013-01-01-18-08-37

Thanks for bumping this. Yes, I've been meaning to post an update but keep forgetting to take some pictures of my buttons. In consultation with a Polish friend who has pictures of a friend's coat, it's clear that the crested buttons are not correct. However, it doesn't use the standard brown dish type like Martin pointed to. The buttons we've confirmed as original are very civilian looking, but this is true for the small ones for the pockets and the ones for the liner. I'll try to get a picture up this weekend.

Steve

I can check mine when I find it - it has all the original buttons...

Long overdue pictures of what appears to be the original buttons for the Leopard parka.

Steve