Pre-war shako pompoms

[neocelt]

Greetings, gents!

Does anyone know of a source for woolen pompoms for antebellum militia shakos? Please contact me directly at: neocelt@earthlink.net -- DO NOT PM ME!

Thanks a million!

[Matthew Semple]

Mr. Nichols,

I sent an email and received a message back stating that your email address is protected by EarthLink spamBlocker. My office email is sometimes blocked because it is a .edu address. I tried accessing the request to be added to Allowed Senders but kept getting an error message, so I am posting instead.

Here is a summary of what I stated in my email:

I am a Norwich University alumnus, class of 2001. In our Corps of Cadets, we used a black wool pompom on top of our tar buckets which was (if I recall correctly) approximately 4 ½” long by 1 ½” wide. The pompom had a wire on the end that slide through a slot on top of the tar bucket.

Please PM me or post here if this is the version that you are inquiring about.

[ElizabethClark]

Mr. Nichols, if you know the proper dimension for the pom, it's not difficult to get some good wool yarn and make one.

[Forquer]

Nick -

Don't know if they have exactly what you want, but you might try S&S Firearms at http://www.ssfirearms.com/download%20catalog.htm .

[Spinster]

Not knowing quite what you are looking for Nick, give a look to the French poms at this site

http://www.militaryheritage.com/m_access.htm

[fahtz]

When we recently reproduced the shakos for the St Louis Grey's Impression. We were able to use a variety of options for our pom poms. One of which was buying one from Dirty Billy. However he charged a good chunk of change for it. The second was a wire and wool yarn. The french pattenr pom poms are not the ones the Greys had. If I can track down the picture, it shows pom poms standing almost 6 inches tall and about 1 1/2" wide. You can see the shako I sported with pom pom here: http://companytailor.googlepages.com/home
Frank Aufmuth made my pom pom, his screen name here is Campjacksonboy.

[neocelt]

Thanks one and all for your thoughtful suggestions. I'll run down the various leads and see what I can scrounge up. As a bit of background (should have posted this initially, methinks...): The pompom is for the shako worn by the Essex Sharp Shooters (from Essex Co., Virginia), which became Co. F, 55th Virginia Inf. The company's antebellum constitution includes the uniform regulations, which state that the pompom is to be black and 4 inches tall. We have not yet located an image of a member wearing the shako, so we have no way of knowing the actual shape of the pompom (flame/teardrop, exclamation point [gradually widening toward the top], etc.). Unfortunately, we can rule out the perfectly round style... Again, many thanks to all, and if any other ideas pop into anyone's head, please do pass them along!

Cheers,