Sunlight: Enemy of Cloth

[Jeffrey Meffert]

Many cloth collectors have picked up items that once graced museums, large and small, across the Soviet Union. Other items have been in private collections here in the US for almost two decades where a prized piece may stay perched on a wig head indefinitely. Time and sunlight have not always been kind. I always have a half dozen uniforms on display in my house at any given time but try to keep the blinds drawn and lights out when not around and I rotate them often enough so that the same piece is not exposed to the same light month after month, year after year.
Below is a nice M43 airforce parade cap with an unusual "stain" on the band. Clearly this sat on the shelf with the cap cord askew for a really long time.
Don't forget to move your pretties around!

[Jeffrey Meffert]

This is from a transitional VVS uniform where even the piping has been bleached almost white. Only in covered areas where cloth was covered by cloth are spared and can the original colors be seen (Inside cuff, under pocket flap, flanks of tunic under sleeve.

[DougD]

I had a Victory Parade style dark blue Militia General many years back that had its back to sunlight over a few years...entire back got bleached...you could see the stripe where the belt protected it.

Talking about my NKGB Commissars 'special' tunic, I do not want to even get into the damage that rain and food can do to a nice tunic!

[deValcourt]

Rain, maybe I can see that. But food?? Where did you have it on display, the pantry?:rolleyes:

It's difficult to curb my bad sense of humor.:o But I really wood like to know how food came into play...

Phillip

[Esteban_cool]

Originally Posted by devalcourt

Rain, maybe I can see that. But food?? Where did you have it on display, the pantry?:rolleyes:

It's difficult to curb my bad sense of humor.:o But I really wood like to know how food came into play...

Phillip

It was that filthy ol´ commisar who ate the rations of the poor ol´soldiers of Red Army that did not had enough political aura on their combat rediness, me fink.:D

[Jeffrey Meffert]

Nice M32 Attache' from distance. Up front there are what look like sausage grease stains everywhere. Unlike the m40 armor I recently had to de-mold, I left these for the charm.
A great scene in the movie "I was 19" opens with many hands making dumplings. The camera pans back and it is an assembly line of about a dozen russian soldiers in their undershirts making dumplings. The camera pans back further and on the chairs behind them are their m43 tunics, be-medaled and badged, many with hero stars. And yet they all work together to make dumplings.
I wish my attache had left his tunic on the chair

[DougD]

When the NKGB tunic was being cleaned (see thread on it) the lady who cleaned it said the lap area had a huge amount of food particles come through her cleaning filter...a few drinks, a spill into the lap, etc....kind of easy to picture. So when talking about another enemy of cloth: booze + food.

[desantnik]

Originally Posted by DougD

When the NKGB tunic was being cleaned (see thread on it) the lady who cleaned it said the lap area had a huge amount of food particles come through her cleaning filter...a few drinks, a spill into the lap, etc....kind of easy to picture. So when talking about another enemy of cloth: booze + food.

Copious amounts of booze often results in the aforementioned activities. :)

[marcotk]

The high-tech solution would be to put your items behind UV-filtering glasses. I think it's more humane than uniformly roasting your uniforms :)

What I plan to do for my collection is to have anti-uv sheets applied to the windows and use LED lamps all over the room, which do no emit uvs. and well, also keep them in the dark most of the times :)

[Jeffrey Meffert]

Rooms where I have uniforms are ones that I did not convert to UV bulbs and left the incandescents. I like the new LED lights and that's a good idea for display areas, neither excessive infrared heat nor UV light.