This is a very nice set of shoulder straps for a Civil War surgeon showing strong gilt remaining on the bullion borders and oak-leaf rank insignia, nice deep color and no moth damage to the black velvet ground, the jaceron wire edging in place, and strong silver wash remaining on three of the four false-embroidered Old English MS letters. The letters indicate assignment to the Medical Staff, and the gold oak leaves the rank of Major, which applied to Surgeons. While in theory green was the branch of service color for the medical branch of the army, black or very dark blue shoulder straps indicating staff are far more common and seem to have been in general use, with Surgeons ranking as Majors and Assistant-Surgeons as First Lieutenants, with a few showing up as Captains from state regulations or the old army system of giving the rank to an Assistant Surgeon after so many years of service if there was no vacancy available for promotion to full Surgeon.

These have open backs, typical of wartime production. The borders are made with a wide main border of pairs of strands of “dead” bullion alternating with single strands of bright, along with a very narrow second border along the outside consisting of two twisted strands of bullion, with the outer jaceron wire running along side it. The bullion of the borders and oak leaves is bright. On both straps the “S” shows a small spot of rubbing and oxidation to a a dark gray at top, with the rest showing most of its muted silver wash. The “M” on one strap hows almost of its silver wash as well; on the other it is oxidized other mostly dark gray. At a couple of corners the bullion strands have moved a bit, showing the underpadding, but the strands are not broken. The reverse shows the metal pins of the false-embroidered letters.

This is a nice set that would look good with a medical staff officer’s sword or in a collection of officers’ embroidered bullion insignia. [sr][ph:L]

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