Original 1859 pattern United States Marine Corps epaulets for the dress coat. Made like the army brass shoulder scales, these have a longer tongue on the bottom over which a separate brass plate slides, from which a worsted wool bullion fringe is suspended. These plates were made removable to permit polishing the scales without damaging the bullion.
These epaulets are mismatched: one has the 1/8 inch diameter fringe specified for sergeants and the other has the 1/16 inch diameter fringe specified for corporals and privates. In practice the difference may not have been taken much into account, at least Cureton and Sullivan comment that period photos often show sergeants with the narrower fringe.
On both of these the fringe has shifted from the original deep yellow to a light mustard color. Period yellow dyes were notoriously unstable, as the many Civil War cavalry officer's shoulder straps attest. These could be dyed back to the original color (either permanently or with a water color,) but I have left them as is.
Each has a Horstmann Philadelphia maker stamp on the underside of the spring tongue. That on the private's epaulet is stamped crosswise; on the sergeant's it is stamped lengthwise. The fringe is generally in good shape, the worst section being on the left of the private's epaulet. Please see the photos.
I thought of splitting these up and selling them separately, but they came together and were likely worn together. In either case they make a good display as a pair or separately, showing differentiation in rank.
I have seen very few of these on the market.
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