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, now the value of just one of the M1 helmets for example would be worth most of that price. It was, in other words, a collection that today I could have sold for many time 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 them from the originals then scanned and made them into jpegs (you can see some of these 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This year, being the 100th year since the pattern was originally made, I got the idea of making a set for sale as a commemorative collectors’ item.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 if they are requested. But also there are variations on the holster. I made two that are exact versions from the pattern; two more that are more, let’s say, slight modifications and modernisations of the original. I am in the process of making all these available on my ETSY store. I will also make them accessible from this site on the Phoenix Leather page. They would be ready to order in the next few days (FYI-today is 26.06.26).