eBay find: Vintage Karrimor

But not so vintage, this one is actually made in Korea. Classic straight foam shoulder straps with no contouring, and a simple rectangular backpanel. As stiff as the backpanel appears in profile I assume it may be one of the foam frame sheets with integrated metal stays.

Karrimor is one of only a few makers to put a hanging belt on an internal framed pack. This particular one is attached at both sides and bottom and appears to have a good bit of adjustment for ride height.

A wide attachment area provides stability, but it can't be too securely anchored or you can prevent the belt from contouring the body properly.

eBay Find: Mystery Ranch OD 3DAP

oddly right after I see the first OD MR military pack in my memory I stumble upon this oddity; an OD green 3 day assault pack with multicam webbing.

My assumption is that this is either a one-off for an employee or friend, or could be a limited run for the Japanese market.

Also interestingly the Futura Yoke appears to be Foliage green. If it weren't for this contrast I would have assumed this pack was foliage itself and only funny lighting was making it appear OD.

Even the seam binding inside is Multicam, someone had fun with this one.

eBay find: Conterra Deek's Advanced Airway Medical Pack

Another brand and pack I only find out about by surfing some of my favorite eBay sellers:

Several features made it stand out to me; I am becoming more mindful of grab handles/haul loops on backpacks and this pack has one not only on the front panel of the bag (nicely padded with a length of tubing) but also on the lid itself.

The zippered top opening is reinforced with a buckle (likely to reduce stress from the top handle) and the aggressive taper of the whole pack towards the bottom isn't super common. The shoulder strap arrangement is decidedly Dana Designs in style, with a loop field and hook-clad webbing for strap length adjustments.

The side zipper wings along with the zippered top-loader are reminiscent of the First Spear Pack that not so long ago took Pinterest and social media by storm. Obviously the FS pack has many differences, but I wonder if there are other medical packs out there with this feature that predate both packs.

Gregory External frame part Deux:

Found another example of the ALICE/NICE style external I found earlier:

This time an ALICE pack was kindly included in the pictures.

Dana Design Arc Altitude Jet Pack

No matter how much time I spend digging, I still turn up Dana Designs packs I haven't seen before. Looking at some old catalogues online I found this cat:

It is probably the first time I've seen a major deviation from DD's famous torpedo front pockets. It is constructed in much the same way, as one continuous piece of fabric divided by a daisy chain (on my DD packs the pockets are actually connected if you care to stick your finger between the bartacks), but obviously this stops before the bottom. The entire bottom third of the pocket appears to transition to one full-width pocket, I cannot say this is terribly appealing as most anything you would put in the pockets would fall and mingle, losing the organization gained by splitting the pockets. Since this is the only pack I've seen without the full split I'll assume other's agreed.

eBay find: Custom ALICE panel

Appears to be a custom or small-batch MOLLE panel for an ALICE frame, no brand or label mentioned in the auction.

What I find most interesting is the shape of the pad on the suspension side, it has more coverage then nearly anything else I've seen slipped over the ol' girl's shoulders:

eBay find: OD green NICE frame

Just as it says, I haven't seen too much OD anything from Mystery Ranch (except of course the accents on the green and grey Mountain packs); I was quite tempted: