AFC/Engineers WW1 vet

[lettman]

A fellow collector recently came across this WW1 'coming home' tunic to a man who enlisted in the Engineers in September 1914(!), was wounded at Gallipoli, sent home, then re-enlisted in the AFC. His AFC patches are of that type that Glyde describes as 'woven onto rolls of khaki jean' (p. 13). The 1st Div AE patches appear to be lengths of purple ribbon with non-serif As pinned through. The wearing of two sets of patches on WW1 AIF uniforms is very unusual, let alone with two sets of titles, 'Australia' and AFCs (the latter in a rather large, non-typical British-style format). Obviously he was proud of his full range of service and wanted the folks back home to see! The photos aren't the best quality, I admit, but will give a reasonable idea of the effect of all the insignia together on the one item. I should add that not shown here are also a metal wound stripe and three OS service chevrons, one red and two blue.