Hi Chris.

Yes, these are the typical coats of the Prussian clubs in North Germany more than 150 years ago.

When the German Shooting Asssociation (Deutscher Schützenbund) was founded in 1861, Germany didn't exist as the later German Reich. Bavaria and other states in the South were still separate, but also the Southern states belonged to the Schützenbund.

The German shooters magazine had a nice picture on the top of the title, which shows the Prussian style shooter (on the right) and the Bavarian shooter (or shooters from alpine regions) with leatherhosens (on the left). But they are shaking hands in front of the banner flag of the German Schützenbund.

In the mid 1800s, more Prussians than Bavarians immigrated to US, because the Prussian King had always bad reprisal and the taxes were high and a kind of bondage still existed. (Was not so terrible in Bavaria back then.) So the Prussians escaped to US, brought all their Schützen habits and dress over. 

    Biggi. 

Hi Chris.

My research results and my theory is like follows:

The shown coats are regular coats of the old days. The coats were worn by the shooters, doctors, teachers, pharmacists, factory owners, and, and, and. It was a good quality wool coat for the wealthy society. Often shooters had their honor decoration badges and pins on the coat. Or the fabric ribbon across with the colors of the country or club, especially they convoyed the banner flag of the club in a parade.

And those coats existed all over the German states back then and were brought also to the new world. It was just a pretty coat, not a kind of uniform.

The Prussian shooting clubs back then had more a kind of uniform, which they wore for parades and club events. They still wear it nowadays, with a hat and their fabric-badges stitched on the sleeve.

If you have a look on the homepage of the Brooklyn or New York Schützen-Corps, you can see their uniforms. What they wear is typical Prussian shooter uniforms. They are more the "society clubs" not real shooting clubs. They think they keep German traditions, thats their mission. And they mention their origin: North Germany (Prussia)
Old clubs with the name "shooting society" or "Schützen Gilde" were more "real shooting clubs", and often they are still nowadays at ranges to shoot their matches. 
I don't know how many real German Schützen clubs survived in US, after it was forbidden to be very German (during WWI). Nowadays there are still a lot of Bavarian clubs in US, which care for Bavarian traditions. But I don't know if there are also Bavarian shooting clubs.

There is no special Bavarian shooter dress. Nowadays they wear leather-hosen and wool coats in Bavarian style. But in the old days, it was much to expensive for a farmer or worker to own a leather pant. They wore regular black pants and a black coat. In the big towns like Munich they didnt had a kind of "Tracht" (costume dress). Munich shooters were wealthy people, company owners and so on. They wore a black or grey wool double-breasted coat with two rows of buttons, always with a vest and a hat.

The figure shows a bunch of wealthy high society shooters in 1863 (Munich), posing for a group picture.

           Biggi.   

They were posing with their huge banner flag (I cut the pic on the left), but it was not necessary to show the rifles on a pic which was taken in a photo studio.

             Biggi. 

That's a grand photo, dear lady. Those are serious-looking gents, not "babes with Ballards". 

Schuetzenmiester wrote on Apr 19^th, 2016 at 3:22pm:


We have pheasant feathers in Germany,

Yes, I was wondering too that they all wear the same feathers.
I think they did it just for the photo. 
Might be a feather of a pheasant or a "Oriental/Indian Darter". 

I don't know which kind of feathers they used 155 years ago for a shooter's hat.
Pictures of those years are real scanty.
Its the oldest photograph I own from the old old days.

But I know that eagle feathers were in great demand in the mid/late 1800s.
The most famous eagle hunter was Leo Dorn from the Allgäu (South-West Bavaria). He was a royal hunter and Alpine forest ranger in duty of the King of Bavaria. And he was a very successful shooter at the German Bundesschiessens and matches all over Bavaria.

Picture shows eagle hunter Leo Dorn (on the far right) in 1906, he was famous for his long white beard.
The man in front with the white beard is Prinzregent Luitpold of Bavaria, our beloved king. He was a hunter too, always in the mountains with common guys and Alpine hunters.

    Biggi. 

Here is another original old photo of German shooters from my collection.
This one is from Prussia!   

It is the "Schützenverein Wolmirstedt", 100 miles West of Berlin.

I think its from the 1860s, even the club doesn't know the exact date.
But there are just muzzle loader rifles to see, so it must be old.

Because they could't take pics back then which show the whole members, they took pics of groups and assembled it on a collage, the background was hand-painted.

A lot of the guys wear double-breasted coats. Some have one button tab.
Coats look a bit like hunter dress.
They wear their honor decorations and medals with small ribbon-bow on top.

            Biggi. 

Quote:
DEFINITELY A PHOTO GALLERY STICKY!