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    Issued or Commercial?

    beefheart
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    Name : Frownland Archive
    Location : Indonesia
    Registration date : 2022-02-21
    Number of posts : 35

    Issued or Commercial?  Empty Issued or Commercial?

    Post by beefheart Thu Jul 27, 2023 2:27 am

    Hello everyone,
    I've been reading through this forum, and I've noticed a recurring topic about the distinction between issued and commercial camouflage pieces. It seems that some of you may have differing opinions on whether commercial items are used by the armed forces, and this leads to questions about their authenticity or collectibility.

    I'd like to share my thoughts to provide a better understanding, but I'm also open to corrections if I'm mistaken. I've gathered my insights from owning various camouflage items and closely observing the situation in Indonesia.


    Background:
    To start this discussion, let me provide some background first. This post will focus only on camouflage used by the Armed Forces, excluding political camo.
    Indonesia, being a vast archipelago, has surplus stores in almost every major city. These stores can be categorized as follows:
    1. Army Base Koperasi store, or privately-owned stores by the army for the army.
    For example, a Kopassus’s or Kopasgat's Koperasi. They provide uniforms and accept made-by-order for internal use only. I have two uniforms made from Koperasi, best examples were requesting a totally different cut in extra-large sizing.

    2. Surplus stores or "Toko Kaporlap" as we call them here.
    These privately-owned surplus stores are usually located near army bases and provide a wide range of surplus items such as backpacks, uniforms, MREs, shovels, and more. As expected, they also sell original issued uniforms made by reputable manufacturers like Sritex, which could be in excess or for any specific reasons.

    3. Third-party sellers.
    They often operate online only, mostly by person. But they also most often see selling items that I referred to as pure commercial items. I will explain below.


    Categories
    After understanding the background, I personally categorize the uniforms into three main groups:
    1. Issued.

    Issued or Commercial?  Fba2d710
    Made under a government contract, these are the most straightforward to identify. Issued items will have dates, logos (AU-AL-AD-Polri), and products from reputable manufacturers like Sritex will often have care instructions.


    2. Private Purchased.

    A service member can get an extra uniform whether from Army Koperasi Store, Surplus store, or Private tailor. As explained above, they can request a uniform from Koperasi like a different cut or bigger sizes.
    Issued or Commercial?  F4034c10

    Now, the Private tailor comes into play. 

Private tailor means they made the uniform based on measure/request. The reason may be that they don't have ready stock in Koperasi or surplus stores. So they made the uniform there. 

Private tailors usually have a label. (picture below).

    For example Kutaraja Tailor and Yudha Tailor (Aceh), 
Gentur Tailor (Jakarta), Yarden Tailor (Jogjakarta), Bhara Abadi (Semarang).
    

I consider this NOT a “commercial” piece but an aftermarket piece. Still, worn by the serviceman and often patched up. Private purchased.
    Issued or Commercial?  Feb0ad10


    3. Presented.
    Now as we know, in Indonesia we have still developing many-many camouflage by private parties. "Presented" here means they are run into the testing phase by the Armed forces, or issued only a specific unit. This camo can't be bought anywhere, and only specific members can have them.

    For example, we have Gegana-Poso by Molay, SAMAR-Komando camouflage for SAT-81 (other SAMAR also in testing for another unit), SAT-81 Black Multicam by Cartenz, RIMBA on trial by Kopasgat.

 If you have one of these, it's also not a commercial piece since it's not sold publicly.



    4. Commercial.
    Lastly, commercial items. In first place, I really don't know any reason why some people created the uniform and sold it publicly. Since it's prohibited for civilians to wear this item. Often only available via website/social media via third-party sellers.

    Issued or Commercial?  C25ffb10

    The main differences are, the jacket cut didn't make sense and the camouflage print is very crude (not much detail and often wrong color).
    

This, I prefer you guys stay away from it. Even if there is a possibility this item was bought and worn by a service member, that's an exception if comes with provenance. But most of the time, I consider it as commercial.


    Conclusion
    In conclusion, based on the examples shared here in other posts, I consider the camouflages as privately purchased or aftermarket items, rather than commercial pieces. They are still used within the armed forces but not created by official government manufacturers.

    I hope we gain a better understanding of the different types of camouflage in Indonesia from my brief post.
    Many thanks for reading, Zhen.

    TennoHeikaNate, tlundberg1 and gigeorge like this post

    CollectinSteve
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    Issued or Commercial?  Empty Re: Issued or Commercial?

    Post by CollectinSteve Fri Jul 28, 2023 1:07 am

    Thank you for that detailed explanation! When I was actively collecting Indonesian uniforms I did acquire a few that appeared to be legitimate construction/design in the early 2000s, but did not have labels in them. It seems these might be your second category (private tailor). I was told at the time that these uniforms were made to sell to foreign collectors, probably by a single person. It makes sense to not have labels in case they were intercepted leaving the country.

    What do you think of this theory?

    In the early 2000s it was possible to get uniforms from the Philippines military in this way. Before this a friend there could "order" a uniform in a particular size, with badges. Eventually this stopped because the government threatened the private tailors with criminal charges and a loss of business to real military personnel. This seemed to be quite effective as the supply of such uniforms dried up almost overnight.

    Steve
    beefheart
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    Name : Frownland Archive
    Location : Indonesia
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    Issued or Commercial?  Empty Re: Issued or Commercial?

    Post by beefheart Fri Jul 28, 2023 1:23 am

    CollectinSteve wrote:Thank you for that detailed explanation!  When I was actively collecting Indonesian uniforms I did acquire a few that appeared to be legitimate construction/design in the early 2000s, but did not have labels in them.  It seems these might be your second category (private tailor).  I was told at the time that these uniforms were made to sell to foreign collectors, probably by a single person.  It makes sense to not have labels in case they were intercepted leaving the country.

    What do you think of this theory?

    In the early 2000s it was possible to get uniforms from the Philippines military in this way. Before this a friend there could "order" a uniform in a particular size, with badges.  Eventually this stopped because the government threatened the private tailors with criminal charges and a loss of business to real military personnel.  This seemed to be quite effective as the supply of such uniforms dried up almost overnight.

    Steve

    Hi Steve, thank you for the kind words Very Happy

    I'm sorry I couldn't provide much detailed information in the early 2000s, and can't confirm the government act.

    But from the "legitimate construction/design", it's no doubt a private tailor or comes from private-owned surplus store (they also made their own jacket for example like M65-cut to be sold, using legit fabrics).

    I have several of M65-cut from that era, even in the 90s. From what I've been told, it's really bought by a serviceman to be used daily.
    I have also seen many period pictures wearing them.

    Zhen
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    brencam
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    Issued or Commercial?  Empty Re: Issued or Commercial?

    Post by brencam Fri Jul 28, 2023 6:22 pm

    that is a beautiful synopsis of Indonesian camo sources-are has explained the range of labels in my uniforms-thank you Zhen
    I do love Indonesian camo

    Brendan Conroy

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    beefheart
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    Name : Frownland Archive
    Location : Indonesia
    Registration date : 2022-02-21
    Number of posts : 35

    Issued or Commercial?  Empty Re: Issued or Commercial?

    Post by beefheart Sat Jul 29, 2023 8:08 am

    brencam wrote:that is a beautiful synopsis of Indonesian camo sources-are has explained the range of labels in my uniforms-thank you Zhen
    I do love Indonesian camo

    Brendan Conroy

    Hi hello Brendan, many thanks for the kind words
    jimmyduncan23
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    Post by jimmyduncan23 Mon Jul 31, 2023 1:13 pm

    Well done and thanks for the detailed reply!! I am chasing kopaska patches if you know where to get them!

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    beefheart
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    Name : Frownland Archive
    Location : Indonesia
    Registration date : 2022-02-21
    Number of posts : 35

    Issued or Commercial?  Empty Re: Issued or Commercial?

    Post by beefheart Mon Jul 31, 2023 10:59 pm

    jimmyduncan23 wrote:Well done and thanks for the detailed reply!! I am chasing kopaska patches if you know where to get them!

    I will let you know once I can find them Sir! FYI I'm still looking for a legit set also.. haha
    patches is often faked for sure

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