There were a number of Civil War patents for methods of attachment or manufacture of officer’s shoulder straps. Gideon Robinson’s straps, like the Smith patent, used a metallic border that was cheaper, more durable, and easier to keep bright than bullion embroidery, but used wire strands rather than a stamped metal plate to give them some flexibility and create a brighter imitation of dead and bright bullion by alternating groups of twisted two-strand wires with groups of twisted metal ribbon. These wires were grouped and coiled around a hollow mandrel, then swaged into the hollow to give the strips some stiffness, which were then cut to form the side and end borders of a strap, attached to one another by internal corner pieces. The central ground could be the usual cloth and the rank insignia the more convention embroidered form.

This is nice set, really showing off how nicely the wire borders show off the alternating dead and bright sections. The backs are clearly stenciled in white: “GIDEON ROBINSON / PATENTED / DEC 2d 1862.” The centers are dark blue velvet, sometimes used along with black to indicate staff, but also along with light blue to indicate infantry. The rank insignia are the double gold bars of a Captain. These were clearly worn, but show just a little rubbing to the centers of the velvet, some wear to the edges of the dark blue fabric along the sides, a little to the backs, and one or two small places where the jaceron wire is slightly out of position along the borders.

Robison explained his invention as follows: “The object of this invention is to obtain a shoulder, strap which is less costly and more durable than those which are made of bullion embroidery, and which has a better appearance than those in which the border and bars are composed of metal plate, and at the same time has a desirable degree of flexibility; and to this end it consists in the construction of the border of the shoulder-strap of wire by coiling the Wire upon a mandrel of half-round or nearly half-round shape to form the sides and ends of the border, and combining the sides and ends by means of internal corner pieces stamped or otherwise formed of plate metal.”

These would make a great addition to a collection of Civil War insignia.   [sr][ph:L]

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