Talon Zippers: How to Read the Zip on Vintage Clothing

A Talon zipper is a zip made by Talon, the Meadville, Pennsylvania company that turned the zipper into an everyday part of American clothing, and you'll find the name stamped on the pull of a lot of old American jackets and pants. On a vintage piece it tells you the zip is American and probably older, but it doesn't give you a year on its own, because Talon made zips for most of the 20th century.

Where Talon came from

It starts with Whitcomb Judson, a Chicago inventor who came up with a hook-and-slider fastener for shoes and showed it at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. It didn't work very well. Lewis Walker, a lawyer who put money behind it, brought in an engineer named Gideon Sundback, and Sundback worked out the version we still use: two rows of small metal teeth on cloth tape, pulled together by a slider. He also built the machines to make it.

The business, by then called the Hookless Fastener Company, set up in Meadville. Sales were slow for years. Early zips went on tobacco pouches and boots, and clothing makers weren't in a hurry to give up buttons. In 1923 B.F. Goodrich sold a rubber overshoe with a slide fastener and called it the Zipper Boot, which is where the word comes from.

Why it's called Talon

In 1937, the year Walker died, the company took the name Talon, after the claws of a bird of prey. Then came the war. Talon got big military contracts, and zips went onto flight suits, uniform jackets and coats. By around 1960 something like seven out of ten zippers sold in America were Talons.

It didn't last. Zips from overseas, above all from the Japanese maker YKK, took the market, and by the mid-1990s Talon's production in Meadville was gone. The Talon name is still around today, so a Talon pull alone doesn't prove a piece is old.

Conmar and YKK

Conmar is the other old American name collectors look for. It was a zipper maker in Newark, New Jersey. A pen-history blog notes Conmar moved into Waterman's old Newark factory in the early 1940s and stayed for decades, and a 1950 trade ad lists Conmar Zippers in Newark. Collectors on leather jacket forums look for original 1940s and 50s Conmar zips and pulls, and one vintage seller's guide says they were often used on military clothing. We haven't found a solid company history beyond that, so we'll leave the dates there.

YKK was founded in Tokyo in January 1934 by Tadao Yoshida. It opened its first US office in New York in 1960. So on an American work jacket, a YKK zip is a hint the piece is from 1960 or later, but it isn't a date either.

What the zip tells you, and what it doesn't

• Metal or coil. Talon brought out the Zephyr, a nylon coil zip, in 1960. A plastic coil zip on a piece is a hint it's 1960 or later. Metal teeth don't prove anything on their own, since metal zips are still made.
• The name on the pull. Talon, Conmar or YKK narrows it down, but each one ran for decades.
• Pull shapes. Collectors date zips more closely by the shape of the pull and slider. Those guides come from sellers and forums and don't always agree, so treat them as hints, not proof.
• Read it with everything else. A zip is one clue. Check it against the label, a Sanforized tag or a union label, and the cut.

Archive Workwear sells vintage workwear, outdoor, ivy, military and true vintage from Denver, Colorado. See vintage workwear and jackets, or follow new finds on Instagram at @archiveworkwear.