by CollectinSteve Sun Apr 04, 2010 1:09 pm
A close up of the tag would be very good to have. But here's my guess.... it's an early Chinese copy. The primary tipoff to me is the stiffness of the fabric. But there are other things as well:

I don't know what the full story is with this item, but from what I can tell it was made in the early 1990s for the collectors market at a time when the real Flecktarn uniforms were extremely hard to find (and expensive... I bought a real set for $120 when in Germany!). The Chinese set is near exact copy but made from a 100% cotton fabric instead of the original's cotton/polly blend. The workmanship is generally quite good. The manufacturer's tag, on the other hand, is a bad fake, which is what gives it away as a copy more than anything else.
The Flecktarn trials stuff is quit rare and is cut similar to the old Moleskin uniform, including buttons instead of snaps. So 0% chance what you have is a pre-production trials item. As the uniform started to be issued they changed some of the features, including moving the arm pocket and switching from copper headed snaps to plastic headed. There were a bunch of other differences too, but these are the two significant ones. The shirt you have has plastic headed snaps, which is another indication that this was made after production was started. As far as I know there wasn't anything made after production in anything other than the cotton/poly cloth mix until the Troppentarn uniform, which definitely isn't like the one you have.
Sooooo... long story short, hopefully you didn't put a lot of money into this one. I've got several unused ones sitting here and I doubt anybody will want 'em. Fortunately mine came along for the ride with other purchases

Steve