Good morning.
I recently purchased a U.S. M-1878 haversack and leather carrying strap from International Military Antiques (I.M.A.). This vintage of equipment is not my usual field of interest, but having recently discovered great-uncle had served in the U.S. Army in the Philippines at the turn of the century sparked some interest.
Overall, I am very pleased with the condition of the item and the leather sling. The haversack has nice markings, appears to have all the hardware present and functional and has no major stains or painted out unit markings. It was advertised as an "early" model, having the "D" rings rather than hooks and having the split letters on the "US stencil. The inside is marked "Rock Island Arsenal" and there are initials "F.P." under the closure strap. It cleaned up nicely with a bristle brush. The leather strap came back to life with the application of neatsfoot oil. It is supple and flexible again.
I am looking for some assistance in deciphering the unit markings on the flap. Hopefully someone here with knowledge (or simply better eyesight!) can help me on this quest. As always...thanks in advance.
Mike
Yes, it did.
One more question...the leather strap marked "W.H.M."
Any chance we think it is the same "W.H. McM Co." who made 1911 holsters? for the U.S. in the First World War?
William McMonies Co.
Just a thought....
Had a couple extra minutes available tonight so thought I'd fool around with your images in Photoshop. They are extremely low resolution, so there's a hard limit on what can be discerned. That said, my interpretation of the flap markings are:
1
Co X H ???
U. S. V.
U.S.
1 V
The "X" is obviously the crossed rifles.
"Co" is possibly "Co." but since the "o" appears to be underlined this seems unlikely
The "H" may have something after it, perhaps a platoon (? seems unlikely)
The "???" appears to be a very faint stencil but not enough information in the photos to decipher
I'm interpreting the diagonal stroke as the left side portion of a stenciled "V" underneath the "U.S." absent higher quality (higher resolution) images)
Can you post a high quality image of just the crossed rifles area and of the "U.S." area? I'll see if any addition information is revealed by those photos.
Sometimes I've found wetting the surface makes the letters come out. Just be careful of staining. I haven't had it happen but it could. I just dab it a little, don't soak it.
Thanks for the better pics. Based on these new photos, my current evaluation of the stamps is:
1
Co X B. ? A.
U. S. V.
U.S.
1 (strap) 1
Changes from my earlier interpretation:
Still not sure whether the "o" in "Co" is underlined. Looks like there could be an underscore there, but not clear. The Brits commonly underlined superscripted "o" in various stamped or stenciled abbreviations ("No." and "Co." come to mind), but whether this was seen in period US use is well beyond my knowledge.
The company letter looks more like a "B." than "H." -- but could be an "H," and I couldn't see the period after the letter in the earlier pics
Still can't decipher the first letter in the first line under the crossed rifles, but the second letter is almost certainly an "A." It looks to me like there are two rather than three letters on this line, so perhaps somebody can suggest what this two-letter abbreviation might have been (not me!)
I now suspect that on the line after the "U.S." the right hand black stroke may be a misaligned and mis-stamped numeral "1" instead of the left hand stroke of a segmented "V." Does an "11" make sense in this location?
This may be the limit of what photography and Photoshop can offer (or at least what I can offer), so from this point the period experts may be more helpful.
Could the two letter initials under the crossed rifles be GA for Georgia maybe? And I am seeing U.S.A instead of U.S.V. You can tell the letter A is in the style where the right leg is fat and the left leg is skinny in both the bottom A and the faint A below the crossed rifles.hth
PM
