US 1920's-1930's, Massachusetts NG Officers Tunic, WWI Veteran, 26th Division
This item is listed for historical interest only. It was listed on our site previously but has been sold and is no longer available for purchase.
Sold for: $65.00

Original era manufacture. We have owned this uniform for over 15 years and have never had it on our site, too much stuff, too little time, its seems sometimes. It was part of a large US militaria collection we purchased in southern Arizona in 2002, and it has hung on our uniform rack ever since.Open collar, ribbed wool tunic, with officers cuff braid on each sleeve. The left sleeve displays three WWI overseas stripes, and the right sleeve, a single wound stripe. Four pockets, the upper two are pleated, each secured with an officers pattern button.The epaulettes have a matched pair of Major's rank insignia, and a matched pair of 101st Infantry Regiment DI's. I removed the screw-back DI's to look to see if they are sterling marked, one is, the other is not, both made by Robbins, and are identical in construction. There is fading to the cloth which highlights the outline of each DI on the shoulder strap.The tunic is clean, a small size of course, with surface wear under the arms, a surface stain on the lower left edge of the tunic, and some scattered mothing with typical age and wear in evidence. Written in ink on the inside of the left cuff edge is FB-5. Thecollector to whom this uniform once belonged, was meticulous in his record keeping, marking each article of a grouping with theoriginal owners initials (in this case FB) and assigning the artifact its individual number,5 in this case. He did this with an eye to the future, knowing that someday these artifacts would reach other hands and he wanted to keep the historical record intact. Sadly, he died quite unexpectedly, and many of the groupings were broken up andscattered, with his carefully recorded information being lost in the process. Withthe clue of the FB-5 written in the cuff, it may be possible to determine the name of the officer who wore this tunic after WWI. We know his initials were FB, and that he was wounded while serving in France, and at least postwar was with the 101st Massachusetts National Guard.