Mail shirt 16th
Mail Shirt hip length with short sleeves and collar. Open at the center of the neck. Rings of flattened form, entirely riveted. Wedge rivets. Collar of slightly heavier rings somewhat more crudely made. The rivet heads on the collar on the opposite side. This indicates the collar was added, almost certainly during the working life of the shirt. The body is formed of slightly heavier rings than the bottom border, the ends of the sleeves are even lighter. There is one row of solid rings around the bottom. The shirt is tailored in the back in two lines. These lines start over the shoulder blades and drop rings down to the waist and then down to the top of the shoulder. There are also some expansion rings in the lower center of the back. This provides a lot of extra material over the shoulder blades which would allow for good forward movement. The front is not tailored in the same way. The images with flags indicate the locations of the expansion rings. They point in the direction of expansion. The main rings have an oval form. It appears that the main rings in the main body are app. 5/16 x 1/4 in. ID. The smaller, thinner ones along the sleeve edge are app. 1/4 in. ID and more round.
Detail images show: the first three show the rings in the main body at the center join in the front, the next two show the collar rings and the last show the rings at the edge of the skirt.
If you have any questions, please send them to Wade Allen
This site last updated Wed Apr 13 19:23:18 EDT 2022