bonnie hat "rain pattern"

Hello friends. I need help. What is this? is a bonnie hat of course. but raindrops camo? without labels. anyone knows who is? any ideas?

Hi Juan, not sure but your post keeps multiplying

Some african nation used the Rain drops pattern as well, i know rwanda and angola did... could be just a locally made hat... we would need a African expert to give more information, but the cut resembles some SA boonies, or bush hats i've seeing...

cheers

or could be one of those boonies made in Thailand by one of those Ebay sellers...

thanks for your comments, if I could choose would take the theory of African origin. but we can not exclude any theory.

There was also an ebay seller that used to make lots of boonies from original cloth - eg he made hats out of Austrian zelts etc.I think his ebay username was something..."wolf". I remember he had a few Rain pattern items he made.

yes, a handmade product is more possible.

Martin, the guy you're thinking of used to sell stuff under the name "Gray Wolf Trading", out of Illinois (USA). However, he made all his stuff to the same pattern and this isn't it. So I don't think it's him, though he certainly did make a ton of stuff out of whatever cheap Zeltbahns he could get.

There's lots and lots of hats and boonies made from cheap Zeltbhans out on the market. But I don't recall seeing one quite like this. I would treat it as "hand made commercial" until proven otherwise.

I'm sending this link to a member who might be able to rule in/out an African connection.

Steve

Typical " Gray Wolf " boonie.

He does good work...

Is Gray Wolf still making stuff? Looks like the answer is "yes"

Steve

OK, I finally have some time to look at this.

CollectinSteve wrote:Martin, the guy you're thinking of used to sell stuff under the name "Gray Wolf Trading", out of Illinois (USA).  However, he made all his stuff to the same pattern and this isn't it.  So I don't think it's him, though he certainly did make a ton of stuff out of whatever cheap Zeltbahns he could get.

This was the very first thing that I thought of as well.  I have one of the Gray Wolf rain pattern boonies that I got many years ago.  It is very similar to this hat.  Both are based on the South African style bush hat.  However, the old Gray Wolf boonies did not have a foliage loop like this hat.  The Gray Wolf boonies also used rain pattern fabric for the trim on the brim, whereas this boonie has green trim.

CollectinSteve wrote:Is Gray Wolf still making stuff?

I'm pretty sure Gray Wolf is now "slangvel" on eBay.  He still makes M43 style caps, and South African style boonies, but uses current camo patterns.

This boonie is not a South African Recce "copy camo" cap, as there are no vent grommets, the foliage loops are sewn differently, and the trim on the brim is incorrect.  Plus an ARMSCOR factory produced copy camo cap would have a small silk size tag.  Copy camo bush hats are actually exceedingly rare, as flap caps and Kico caps were produced in far greater numbers.

The rain pattern saw plenty of use with various insurgent groups in Africa during the 70's and 80's, so this could be from any one of them.  However, most of those groups were communist based, and used uniforms styled after ComBloc and Cuban uniforms, not South African.

This could possibly be from Central America too, as some rain pattern stuff worked it's way there.  The rain pattern chest webbings from Nicaragua come to mind.

So it comes down to the provenance of this particular example.  How did you acquire it?  Was there any story to go with it?  Did it come with other items from a particular conflict?

My vote is a tailor made or field made piece.  Without more information about it, it could be from anywhere.

Cheers,

Mike

thank you very much for your opinion.
  about the origin, came on a large lot of things that send me an Uruguayan collector.
unfortunately he does not know me more information about the hat
lot of things is very large and diverse; USA, Italy, Poland, Brazil, NVA, and so on.


including weird things like this harness type. pattern 37 of undetermined origin



and also this Congolese tactical vest


interesting is that in Africa there is a significant military presence through Uruguayan peacekeepers of the United Nations.

and there may be the origin of the hat? a souvenir African?

Given where you got it from, I agree with Mike that it's probably from central Africa and is "genuine" in the sense that it was used by a military/militia force and not made by someone like Grey Wolf.

Mike's other suggestion, Nicaragua, is also possible.

Steve

thank you very much

Hah!  I see your cat likes to lay on your camouflage too!  Every time I get a fresh haul of camo, it doesn't take but a couple minutes for the cats to work their way on to the pile, and make themselves comfortable.   

Hmm...that's quite an eclectic selection of kit there.  That doesn't help much with nailing down where that hat came from.  There is stuff there from all over.  I'm afraid I can't add much to what I've already stated.

I'm digging that Congalese assault vest.  I see it has a tag.  Is it legible?

Mike

Hi Mike.
That's right, it's easier to take a picture with the cats to try get them out.
I have a full album with them. Of course that the hairs are the problem.



About Congolese assault vest, unfortunately the label is washed. not readable.



regards

I agree with Mike that the nature of the collection doesn't give any sort of specific confirmation. However, when I try to judge something questionable I do think it is useful to examine the collection/collector it came from. For sure even the best collector can have a fake item and not know it, just like even the most basic collector could unknowingly have something extremely valuable and authentic. But for the most part a collector with lots of very interesting things from the part of the world where an item is suspected to come from makes me doubt less than if it came from a random guy.

The collection you have is, as Mike says, very eclectic. Therefore this hat is not out of place within the collection. It's not like you bought a bunch of Swiss Alpenflage and a couple of US Woodland BDUs and the hat came with it So if this were my hat I would treat it as "valuable until proven otherwise". I know others may differ, but on stuff like this it's sometimes the best you can hope for.

Steve

Thanks steve for your kind words.
My friend has many contacts and only collects helmets. Then sent me the extras.
It's fun to get these eclectic boxes and categorize .
And of course I'll keep my hat in a special place in my collection.

Thank you very much to all and I will continue asking for opinions of the items that I can not classify.


juan pablo

In the center of second pics are two shoulder patches of Soviet Army:Tank troopers and Signal troohers. used until 1991.

Thanks