Vintage Zipper Parts: We Want Them!

For the 16 years we've been in operation, we've used vintage zippers and vintage zipper parts. We love being able to offer details of this nature on our jackets, and acquisition of other parts has led to a library of choices when ordering a jacket from Good Wear.

Zippers fail for a number of reasons. Often, our first thought is to throw away the old parts and replace them with new parts. We did that for a few years when we started. Not with sliders, but with zipper chains and stoppers. We've learned how to use those parts, and use them well, and we've saved every part we can get our hands on.

We would like to enlist your help if you have zipper parts which you no longer need.

We've learned how to carefully dis-assemble most parts of a vintage zipper, and how to apply them either to other vintage zippers of the same manufacture, or apply them to modern zippers of high quality. They operate as they should, and having the vintage parts makes the zippers even more special.

If you have full zippers that are closed at the bottom (non-separating), or parts from vintage zippers that you cannot use—tempting to throw away—we ask that you allow us to purchase those parts. They aren't worth a signifitant amount of money, but to us, they are a viable tool we can use in making our jackets.

We want these parts, not because we cannot get good zippers, but because we want to use vintage parts, and we want them not to be thrown away. We have access to several wonderful modern reproductions, but nothing beats the metal and construction of vintage sliders, stoppers, and chains, if the chains are still in solid condition.

We make it sound like it's easy to build zippers from vintage parts, but it's not. Especially with the bottom stoppers. Removing Talon stoppers from the pins takes a very, very steady and careful approach, using the right tools, and if it's not done right, the stopper will break in half. Please allow us to do that work. The stoppers sitting on the last inch of chain are the most successful method of getting them to us.

Items that we would like:

- zippers which are closed-end

- zipper sliders

- zipper end stoppers

Examples are shown below