What is the difference between Russet color and Seal Brown?
Russet is a medium color with a red tint in it (this is the original color of the A-2). Seal Brown is very dark brown. In our catalog, the front page image of A-2 is a Horsehide Russet. The A-2 goat skin is made of medium brown color and the G-1 Jacket is made of Seal Brown (darker than medium brown) goat skin. The Russet story: In the early 30’s when the original A-2 spec was created by the Army, the spec called for the color to be “Seal Brown”. In the tanning process with early day technology, the color dye process got oxidized and the result was a reddish color brown known as “Russet”, which is the color of all early day A-2 Horsehide jackets. In late 30’s technologies improved and the tanneries were able to stop the oxidization process, which result in a truer “Seal Brown” color (much darker, and not as reddish color). By the time that WWII arrived and the demand for A-2 jackets was extremely high, and the horsehide supply diminished (the end of the horse and buggy era, and machine
