Bombay Engineers, a defective dress tunic of a colonel

The scarlet tunic of the Bombay Engineers has dark blue velvet facings and two rows of gold lace to the collar with the rank badges of a crown and Bath star, with the ornate gold lace sleeve decoration. It retains only five of the original six buttons to the tails of the tunic and none of the nine which would have been down the front. Although the red melton cloth of the tunic shows none of the usual moth or insect damage, the quilted parts of the lining are quite worn. It has a pocket to the inner left side and two deep ones in the tails. The tunic measures 14 ins between the shoulders at the back and 28 ins from the base of the collar to the bottom of the tails. The rank badges to one collar date this to before 1880 and the rather long style suggests somewhere nearer to 1860. oct8/1