Caveat Emptor

[RayROnline]

I see an ad on eBay today for a U.S. Wings Indy jacket that the seller says is made from the same bolt of leather as the one they used to make the one from the last Indiana Jones Movie! I bet that's news to the family of the late, great Tony Nowak!

That is either sadly misinformed, or pretty shady.

[Tennessee Smith]

I can't speak of the auction piece but US Wings did make a small run of jackets (under 100) out of the same batch of leather Tony used for CS. Tony sourced his leather from a tannery that US Wings ended up contacting and bought the remaining unused portion of the batch. The Crystal Skull Limited Edition jacket sold out very fast to and a lot of the guys here bought one (I had one myself for awhile). This was a few years before you joined. If you look through the archives you can find out all you want to know abut that jacket.




-The Dude

[Texan Scott]

I saw the ad too, and it is difficult to say definitively that yes, this very hide was made from the same bolt, but it is possible. I wonder if they enclose some type of "CERT." detailing same? If you are after something like this, occasionally, you will find a USW Collector's Edition (CE) jacket for auction that is vertually the same thing, but does not have the same marketing ploy attached to it, and usually less than the referenced. Essentially, distressed cow is distressed cow. These jackets are sort of the modern day repros. of the Cooper jackets that were produced in the early 90's, etc. Add the snaps and you have a good LC likeness.

On the other hand, if you are looking for a good cowhide Indy, then their Legend for $195 is a great deal. Its collar is almost spot on to the LC jacket. Give me a few tweaks and you are definitely in the hunt. The leather is not inspiring as its initial vintage, distressed offering back in 2011, but still quite the jacket for the price. The leather is somewhat thicker than the intial, also.

To me, the prized catch right now on auction is that Hero jacket in authentic lamb. Quite the bargain.

[Indiana Jeff]

Hard to tell just from the pictures, but the overall story is correct as The Dude said.

Since it still has the tags an interested buyer should be able to get stock/serial numbers from the seller and I bet Wings would be able to pinpoint when the jacket was made and establish it's providence.

These jackets were sold as limited edition with a premium price so doing the extra legwork could justify the extra auction price. However, like Texas Scott pointed out, distress cow is distressed cow.


Regards,

Indiana Jeff

[interbak]

Sorry Ray, it's true.
US Wings made about 90 of them right after CS came out. I had mine for sale on here cheap, a couple times, nobody wanted it. They didn't come with a certificate or anything special, really just another Wings jacket. It's now moved on to a new happy owner that just wanted a nice jacket. The CS leather thing never really took off as a sales incentive.

Brian

[RayROnline]

Thanks everybody, for educating me. I can always count on the COW folks to be helpful and knowledgable

[Kevin Anderson]

Might want to change the thread title to 'Do some basic internet research before jumping to false conclusions'.
Google, as always, is your friend.

[Indiana Jeff]

Whoa, easy there, Kevin.

There's plenty of jackets being sold with all kinds of questionable providence quoted.

Ray saw something that looked off, came here to report it and got the corrected information.



Regards,

Indiana Jeff

[Chewbacca Jones]

Ray may have been incorrect, but his point is still valid. Know what your buying. And in his defense, there have been so many Wings offering coming and going since CS came out that it's would hard, even with due diligence, to know about all of them.