HALLOWEEN (1978) COVERALLS MATCH

I ordered the “Frosted Nickel” which is basically silver. The brass came with a brass backing piece, and that piece always does look silver in pictures I’ve seen. You really never see much, if any, of the actual donut hole button.

It would be interesting to see what the 70’s Tradewears came with- if they were all silver or brass or if they had small differences like it seems Sears was famous for during those years! I’ve seen so many variations that I think the Sears factories just kind of swapped labels, pockets, etc. as inventory and marketing changed

There are photos of the button in this very thread. Check pages 9 and 16.

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I agree, there probably was definite variations as far as the collar button goes. I think either the nickel or the brass is probably gonna be accurate either way. I’ve looked at so many pictures, and it really is hard to tell if it is one or the other. Im working on my roebucks ones right now and i just ordered some of the brass ones from etsy, the ones alot of people on here have a link for wich do look really good by the way!

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I bought some brass and nickel (silver) ones on etsy and they’re almost an exact match, laurel wreath with single star, even use the 2 prong tack/pin on the back. It is easy to mangle and ruin the back tack when installing though, takes some ingenuity to get them installed unless you have a specific button/rivet press.

And I’ve seen real Tradewears online with both a gold and silver colored button, so I bet both were used.

I actually just got my buttons yesterday and i did ruin the first one but i figured outbwhat i did wrong and its all good now. You are right though, it takes some finagiling if you dont have the proper tools.

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(Late to the party but…) So, the H1 coveralls were really Sears Work n Leisure? They do look more accurate than the Tradeware. Both still VERY hard to find. But… if the dude that found the Tradewares in the 1st place says they were really “Work n Leisure”, why do so many people still think it’s Tradeware? Aside from the people who found Tradewares and want to sell them for $700. I understand why they’re doing it. They probably spent years looking for the right Tradeware (when they really needed Work N Leisure) and then realized they DON’T have a $700 set of coveralls.

Tradewear and work and leisure were released simultaneously for years. Quality control was very much lacking. I’ve seen work and leisure that have the Tradewear details but are branded work n leisure tag.

The h1 suit is definitely a Tradewear as that is the most common found suit with all the correct details. The work and leisure tagged ones are likely a factory error

I both agree and disagree but my 2 cents is… I have them all and I agree with the guy who found the Tradewares in the first place. The Work n Leisure are noticeably closer. As for the color, Castle said they were charcoal/grey and that would explain why they look blue at times (as charcoal has blue in it)… that and a ton of blue lighting. It seems very obvious looking at the film/bts shots and it seems people are overthinking this. Not knocking your work either because you make amazing stuff, but you have a vested interest in them being “tex-green” Tradewares as you sell both Trades and replica Trades in “tex-green”. If I had WnLs for sale AND made replicas of them, you bet I’d be telling people all the reasons they’re WnLs. And I only feel comfortable saying this to you here (as my 2 cents won’t interfere with your art/business nor was that my intention).

But, we’re splitting hairs at this point as we’ll never know for sure. These are all educated guesses at best, made by people spending FAR too much time obsessing over finding the “exact” matching coveralls, myself included. But, there is a large amount of overlap in these as they’re all made by Sears, Roebuck and Co.

I get what youre saying for sure. From my count theres been roughly 10-15 screen accurate tradewears surface since 2016 but maybe 2-3 work and leisures that have the same nuances but are tagged black label work and leisure.

Per the actual catalogs, they didnt start offering the thinner material work and leisures until the late 70s. But the hero 78 suit is an early 70s tradewear. The same factories also made both suits and both had identical shape/color tags. My assumption is they didnt have quality control and some tradewears were branded work and leisure and vice versa until tradewear tags were discontinued around 1980

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I’ve spent the last year searching for (and buying) various Sears coveralls and at the end of it all, all I can say is they are SO inconsistent…

I’ve seen Tradewears and Work n Leisure with both the round or square pockets, hammer loops (yes, a guy on Reddit had Tradewears with a hammer loop: https://www.reddit.com/r/Halloweenmovies/comments/141zgnu/heres_my_vintage_pairs_of_screen_accurate/), Roebucks with a square pocket, the Sears red tag “Coveralls” with the square pocket… the list goes on.

No matter what the specific line of Sears is (or brand), having the right details is more important- mostly the button collar, square pockets, and the lower middle snap that is below the pocket tops (it moved higher on Roebucks).

As for the colors, did black tag Work N Leisures come in Tex-green or charcoal? In the '81 Sears catalog it’s called dark green, not spruce green. The spruce green blue tag Work n Leisures I have are a noticeably lighter green than all the pictures I’ve seen of the screen used H2 coveralls.

My closest pairs so far are dark green Roebucks for H2- they look better than the green blue tag Work n Leisures which makes me think the black tag Work n Leisures was a darker green (although Roebucks have a higher front chest snap and double stitching). I also have navy Roebucks and navy blue tag Work n Leisures because they look more navy blue on screen in H2 than H1!

As for H1, I have a navy pair of Tradewears but with the snap button and rounded pockets, but I couldn’t pass them up. I also have a pair of NOS Sears Perma Prests with round pockets, snap collar, rear middle seam, and in a dark grey/green color that I think must be Tex, but it could also just be that the “greens” varied year to year. Either way, that green looks really close to the schoolyard scene

I spent more time that I would like to admit going through the catalogs at https://christmas.musetechnical.com/ and never do they show a tag (black, blue, or otherwise) nor specifically call out “Work n Leisure” or “Tradewear” as far as I could find. Unless I’m not looking at the right catalogs.

I think it’s actually fun to find the differences and go on the hunt. No matter which ones I use, they’re way better than my first pair of blue Dickies with the zipper chest pockets!