We have looked at later production Canadian 37 Pattern shoulder braces on the blog before. To recap, in 1942 Canada started producing shoulder braces that were made of a single piece of 1″ wide webbing which passed through a tubular piece of webbing that was pressed and sewn around this thinner strap to make the 2″ flare portion of the brace, this method of construction being very obvious to the eye. Up until 1942, however, the Canadians produced shoulder braces made from three separate pieces of webbing sewn together and it is an example of this early pattern we are looking at today:

The difference in design can be seen here when laid alongside one of the later production Canadian braces here:

Despite the change in construction method starting in 1942, there was a transitional period where the older style was still being manufactured and this pair of the early pattern are both dated 1942 and were manufactured by Zephyr Loom and Textile, note also the acceptance mark of the /|\ within a ‘C’ and are marked ‘L’ for long:

The development of the 37 Pattern webbing in Canada is particularly interesting and the webbing was subject to many small changes in manufacture over the war which makes it so interesting to collect as you try and track down each variation.