Good Wear Leather Coat Company — Sale L.W. Foster G-1 MIL-J-7823 Flight Jacket

L.W. Foster MIL-J-7823 G-1 Flight Jacket
Price: $699.00 (used condition) — note shipping costs below
Fit: this pattern is a comfortable fit in the correct size
Leather: chrome tanned seal brown goatskin
Mouton: original brown mouton
Waistband: original seal wool, some tiny darned holes in waistband
Cuffs: seal wool, new replacements
Zipper: original No.5 nickel Conmar zipper, which operates well
Size: 46

We have this great original L.W. Foster G-1 available. It's in used condition, but light enough use that it's easy to wear. The jacket has never had any name tags or patches applied, so it looks quite clean. The leather is robust, healthy, not stiff, and the finish is still superb. There are signs of wear on some high spots, but this is minimal and it still looks very clean.

Foster was a huge Navy contractor, making so many jackets (and AN-J-3A jackets, too). This jacket was made in 1959, from a contract with 11,159 to the order. The previous Foster G-1 order was for 37,000 jackets, and both of these are some of the most commonly seen G-1s from this era. Foster was a trusted maker, but the construction of the waistband led to a contract lawsuit, and soon this pushed Lou Foster to no longer make jackets for the Navy (his company made leisure suits instead). His brother Irvin B. Foster would soon bid for Navy G-1 contracts, doing equally huge work for the Navy.

The jacket came to us with cuffs cut off, so we replaced them with excellent cuffs of a match in wool color. The waistband had a number of small holes on the wearer's right side, so we darned them, which can be seen below. Now, the jacket has a near-new look when worn. The mouton has an area near the zipper of missing fur, which most likely happened during construction of the jacket, rather than from use. Mouton from that period could lose fur with the stress of sewing and flipping a collar inside-out to rightside-out, and then the stress of collar insertion and top stitching. Sometimes missing fur is wear, but we know, using vintage mouton, that sometimes it's just a slightly weak area of fur that gets damaged during construction.

The rest of the jacket is original and extremely solid. The lining has no holes, and looks robust and almost new, and the Conmar zipper is in wonderful condition, working as it should. The thread in the jacket is in as-new condition. Jackets of this size are hard to find, especially in wearable condition, and this one is a great, wearable G-1.

The jacket has a very subtle odor of both the tanning method, and faint period cigarette fragrance. This can be easily corrected on a warm, sunny day by leaving it facing the sun for a couple hours, front and then back. A sensetive nose will notice, but most won't really detect it.

The jacket fits typical of a size 46 in 1950s G-1 jackets. It would ideally fit someone in the range of 5'10" to 6'2" with a chest of 42-44", and a weight of about 190-220 pounds. The wearer is 6' and 178 pounds, with a 41.5" chest.