Q: Were
all tire gauge pouches made of vinyl, or were the earlier ones
leather?
A: The tire gauge
pouches were leather from the early 50s in all the tool kits
through the 356B model; the only exception is for the version
of the T6B tool kit that had no tire gauge. Like everything else,
there were various versions of the
leather pouch. The earliest ones are the nicest ones. They had
much more
sewing along the edges (I think the stitching used was called
surge
stitching) of the earliest ones. In addition, there was a little
piece of
material sewn inside the bag next to the inner surface of the
metal snap so
that it wouldn't scratch the lens of the gauge.
An unusual variation is that
a few pouches were suede leather.
Pouches are made from two pieces
of leather. Reproduction pouches invariably
have two halves that matching leather grain, i.e., out of one
hide. Many, but not
all, of the original pouches have two halves that don't match
----- My guess
is that one worker would be stamping pouches for one side out
of one hide,
and someone else would be stamping ones for the other side out
of a different
hide.
The 356C tire pouch was vinyl
in most cases. I believe the ones delivered in
Porsche kits were always light gray. Some of the ones sold in
the 1970s
through sources such as Stoddard were red and some were gray.
A small
percentage of 356Cs (5% or so?) came with a leather tire pouch
instead of a
vinyl one. The leather 356C pouch was slightly different than
the earlier
leather pouches.
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