These marks are commonly found on WW1 US horse equipment and related items. On leather items, there will also typically be a three-character stamp under this mark indicating the government inspectors initials, and many times date of manufacture year stamping (1917 or 1918). Contractor Name Contractor Location Images of Marks Exact Marking Characters A. G….
The common iron ‘barrel buckle’, or roller buckle, was referenced in the U.S. Ordnance Manual and other specifications for civil war horse equipment, such as the McClellan, the various artillery items, and quartermaster harness. A truly popular form of buckle hardware for leather straps and belts, it’s still very common today. The exact style of…
In this article, we look at regulation US military metal stirrups of the 20th century. Stirrups are one of those small details in horse equipment that perform a vital function, and yet can take on so many interesting and curious styles and details. The 20th century brought a renewed vitality to the US military. The…
In the Summer 1984 edition of Military Collector & Historian magazine, there was a wonderful article by Frederick C. Gaede about the US blankets that were in the “Danish Exchange” collection at the War Museum (Krigsmuseet), in Copenhagen, Denmark. The background information on the exchange itself is as important as the article subject itself. I’ll…
For many years, I’ve seen in many sources comments about the horse equipment, especially saddles, being largely inspired by French hussar equipment. That sort of discussion is informative, if you know what French hussar equipment looked like. So began a longtime hit and miss search of foreign designs and influences on the horse equipment of…
In 1863, the Ordnance department of the US Army was making numerous positive actions to improve the horse equipment acquisition process. One of these efforts was concentrated on quality control of saddle trees – a product notoriously difficult to produce to specification on a mass scale. All saddle trees were made using hand tools, so…
