I have been, in the long past, an avid collector of WWII gear from the various branches of the US military. At one point I had pretty much every key item of clothing and equipment as well as replica weapons of that period. Almost every piece was an original piece from that time. One of my most treasured and favourite items was the Colt 1911 leather holster. My particular one was a mint Boyt made version from 1944. It was perfect. The leather, as is the way with old tanning techniques, was in beautiful condition. Anyway, foolishly later in life around the late 80s when I decided to leave the UK I sold the entire collection for a paltry £650.00, to a collector’s shop. It was foolish since as well as regretting not having that museum grade collection any longer; for example the value of just one of the M1 helmets would be worth most that total. It was, in other words, a collection that today I could have sold for many times the price I asked for then. Anyhow I guess it’s all water under the bridge.

So to the set featured here. Since I began making leather gun livery and other items I have wanted to find an authentic pattern for the definitive version of the holster for the Colt .45, as commissioned by the US forces. That is the 1916 Department of Defence pattern for the use of officers. After much research I got lucky in finding some original pattern drawings from the period which looked as though someone had photocopied from the originals, then scanned and made them into jpegs (you can see one of these as a background on this page).

This year, being the 100th year since the pattern was originally made, I got the idea of making a set for sale as a commemorative collectors’ item. The full set is meant as a one off, but I am open to making more on request. Also there are four variations on the holster. I made two that are exact versions from the pattern; two more that are, let’s say, slight modifications and modernisations of the original. These items are now available on my ETSY store. They can also be accessed from this site on the Phoenix Leather page.