Clothing Contractor?

[Calico Boys]

Chums,

While at West Point the other day I was looking at a Contract Mounted Services Greatcoat. The contractor name on the inside was Wm. A. Chrisdie, stamped in both sleeves and on the lining. A friend of mine looked through his book which lists contractors etc.. and didnt find anything about this contractor. Does anyone have any information about this contractor?

thanks,

[LeatherHead]

Re: Clothing Contractor?

Chrisdie was a post-war costume house that ended up with bales of surplus Union uniforms, as was explained to me way back in the 1960s. They were either in Philadelphia or New York City, as I recall. I can't footnote that and do not have the disposable time at present to get into city directory research to pin them down. Many of the yankee coats coming out of Chrisdies in the 1960s had the ownership stamps cut out of the sleeve headings by collectors who "rented" them and somehow neglected to return them and, on a larger scale, by dealer(s) who wanted to keep the motherload source a secret for as long as they could. I heard sellers of yankee surplus garments explain the missing swatches of lining with the story that these garments had been issued by the Freedmen's Bureau, which didn't make any sense to me, even as an uninformed teenager.

Hope this is usefull...

Dean Nelson

[Calico Boys]

Re: Clothing Contractor?

Dean,

Thanks for the information, and it explains alot. So I guess the original coat was an unknown contractor made greatcoat which just the size stamps.

thanks a bunch,