New Swiss Ammo Strap has Arrived!

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Sometime back I jumped into a thread by Traveller – with comments by Cru Jones as well – re: straps from Dangerous9. The latter is a bespoke strap company consisting of an American craftsman living and working in Munich, Germany.

As a reminder, here is Travellers thread. His photos are much nicer and detailed than mine!

http://www.rolexforums.com/showthrea...highlight=ammo

Dangerous 9 straps are made from a variety of animal skins – Gator, Lizard and other exotics plus leathers such as straps made from Swiss Ammunition pouches.

http://dangerous9straps.blogspot.com/

I also have a Teju Lizard strap on the way. I will update this thread once that piece arrives.


Note. These straps are not cheap…and due to world-wide demand, it can take between 13 to 16 weeks to get a strap. But back to the Ammo…

The pouches date back from the 60’s to 50’s and then some. The older pouches – pictured below, have changed in construction over the years.


The older ones had two pouches in the front for holding Ammo with a stitch running down the middle. The newer ones – 1960’s – had a single pouch in front with no stitch. The older pouches seem to be more Mahogany / darker brown in color likely due to age I would imagine.


When initially getting into Panerai, I didn’t really see the attraction of old / worn leather straps and preferred the streamlined, polished look of OEM Gator etc. I warmed up to these recently…


The straps are made from cutting out pieces on the back of the pouch, which the soldier would have had close to his belt. On straps made from older pouches, from the 1950’s you tend to see a couple of holes from removed stiches running across the strap. These are usually not present on 60’s era straps:

Image borrowed from dangerous 9...



See an older pouch example here. You can see the vertical stitching between the two pockets for Ammo. Image also borrowed from Dangerous 9:




The pouch that actually produced my strap is from 1950. Kind of fitting since my PAM is based on a 1950’s Luminor case! See the pouch below with the rough outline of how the strap was cut out:



The straps are characterized by a stamp designating the year and a Swiss Cross. Strap makers often try to incorporate the stamped parts in the actual strap itself.

My new strap:








I recall Travellers post mentioned a distinctive odor on the strap – since it had been sitting in some storage locker for decades. I have to say, just wearing the strap has no odiferous effects. If I take a deep sniff, it smells like old leather, but that’s it. Nothing off-putting during normal wear or when bringing my wrist near my face.


I really enjoy wearing the rustic strap on the weekends… or even at work on casual day with a pair of jeans and desert boots.

Cheers!