Pictures of the "Danish Exchange" Uniforms Held at the Royal Danish Arsenal Museum

[thomas aagaard]

EDITED in january 2023
removed old link and made sure the one in the text works.
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Last Friday I went by the museum just before closing to get some pictures of the items that the danish army received from the US army in 1858.
Thought some of you might be interested.

About the items:
Text from the museum:


If some of you have more information feel free to share it.
I spoke shortly with one of the employees and he told me that the "raincoat" had basically fallen apart when you took it out of storage. The rubber hadn't survived the ageing.

He also told me that they had a big debate about if they should add weapons or not.
Not including them is show the exchange as it was. But adding weapons would make the "picture" of what a US soldier looked like more complete.
(the "no weapons" won)

Iam sure you will easily notice the embarrassing mistakes in the way the items is shown...

About the pictures
I only had about 15minutes to take the pictures with a borrowed camera, and with no experience taking pictures of museum items... so they could be better.

The pictures are the original ones. With photoshop or similar it should be possible to make them better by modifying the light balance and similar.
The last 9 pictures are of items (or info about them) from the two Sleswig wars. (1849-51 and 1864)

here is one example (cut down in size for the forum)


Feel free to download a copy, fix the lightning and share with others... just make sure to tell where the items are at.


https://musket.dk/acw/us-uniformer-paa-toejhuset/

[FlatLandFed]

Re: pictures of the "Danish Exchange" uniforms held at the Royal Danish Arsenal Museum

Did the sky blue pleated trowsers have side pockets? Thanks for sharing -- interesting photos.
Paul Hadley

[mike44thva]

Re: pictures of the "Danish Exchange" uniforms held at the Royal Danish Arsenal Museum

Thank you!!!

[MarkTK36thIL]

Re: pictures of the "Danish Exchange" uniforms held at the Royal Danish Arsenal Museum

Ditto on what's already been said. Every pic I've seen is small or blurry. These are simply a great resource!

[ScottCross]

Re: pictures of the "Danish Exchange" uniforms held at the Royal Danish Arsenal Museum

Thanks for posting these images. I have wondered for years what these items looked like.

[thomas aagaard]

Re: pictures of the "Danish Exchange" uniforms held at the Royal Danish Arsenal Museum

Did the sky blue pleated trowsers have side pockets? Thanks for sharing -- interesting photos.
Paul Hadley

If you look at picture 34 you can se one of them from the side.
https://www.dropbox.com/sc/2yi5k4i1o...1-P1010684.JPG

Questions:

Cartridge box
On picture 61 the is some sort of text visible on the Cartridge box. anyone that can tell me what it is?
My guess is:
Harding
N - York


Cap punch
The cap punches have a US stamp on it.
Not something I notices before? Didn't the cap boxes made during the war have this? or are the ones I have seen reenactors use just bad replicas.
(in no way unlikely since we are very likely what you would call mainstream)

[GreencoatCross]

Re: pictures of the "Danish Exchange" uniforms held at the Royal Danish Arsenal Museum

Thanks for sharing that gallery! About five minutes after scrutinizing the original drawers I cut a pair to sew up tonight. And those overcoats are interesting...they lack top stitching which means the interior facings were laid on and overcast similarly to uniform coats and jackets produced by Schuylkill.

[Jean21]

Re: pictures of the "Danish Exchange" uniforms held at the Royal Danish Arsenal Museum

Thanks for posting the pictures!

Thomas A.

The text on the cartridge box is the marking from one of the four pre-war accoutrement contractors (Henry A. Dingee, out of New York City), and reads:

H. A. DINGEE
N - YORK

-Jeff Smith

[fahnenschmied]

Re: pictures of the "Danish Exchange" uniforms held at the Royal Danish Arsenal Museum

Neat stuff, specially the pleated trousers, the very much grey blanket and the dark canteen cover. I have always wondered whatever happend to the Danish stuff our Army got?

[mike44thva]

Re: pictures of the "Danish Exchange" uniforms held at the Royal Danish Arsenal Museum

Neat stuff, specially the pleated trousers, the very much grey blanket and the dark canteen cover. I have always wondered whatever happend to the Danish stuff our Army got?

According to the QM Museum in Ft. Lee, its mostly gone (lost, unaccounted for, etc...).

[teufelhund]

Re: pictures of the "Danish Exchange" uniforms held at the Royal Danish Arsenal Museum

Nice to see those items. I can see that Child's blanket looks spot on to the one in the photos. Like that canteen too, I've often wondered what the true original color and weave of the "canteen" cloth was. Thanks for posting!

[AZReenactor]

Re: pictures of the "Danish Exchange" uniforms held at the Royal Danish Arsenal Museum

Thank you for sharing!

[gsusat]

Re: pictures of the "Danish Exchange" uniforms held at the Royal Danish Arsenal Museum

Thanks for sharing the pictures - those are great.

One the leather gear. The cap pouch look like an arsenal product and they did stamp the "US" on the flap. I would guess the cap pouch is Watervielet (?) based on the small hole at each end of the finial slot. Some of the early war copies of the 1857 pattern have the "US" on the flap as well. The cartridge box looks like a 69 round ball box and I think the maker is "H A Dinge" There were only 4 prewar contractors for cartridge boxes - Storm, Dinge, Pitman and Boyd. Allegheny did not mark their boxes.

While the pictures could be better, given better lighting and being able to remove the items from the case these pictures do give a lot of information and are very useful. Thanks again for sharing..

[thomas aagaard]

Re: pictures of the "Danish Exchange" uniforms held at the Royal Danish Arsenal Museum

I know it is a bit short notice, But Ian going to Copenhagen again tomorrow and plan to drop by the Museum to see if they fixed the errors in how they display the items.
(I expect not)

But if anyone want my to try take new pictures of something specific just write so and I will try.

[mike44thva]

Re: pictures of the "Danish Exchange" uniforms held at the Royal Danish Arsenal Museum

I noticed that all but 2 of the photos are gone from the link. Did they get moved?