Figure 1.--We are confused by the uniform this unidentified is Cub is wearing . The ranks and arrow heads on his shirt look like an American Cub, but the uniform is not blue. I'm not sure what color the Cub uniform here is, but it is definitely not dark blue. Botice the Sixer stripes on the sleeve. That looks British, but I think early American Cub uniforms also had them. Most early American Cubs wore knickers, but there were also short pants uniforms. American Cubs had knee socks with stripes, but they were dark blue socks with yellow stripes. The portrait is not dated, but we would guess was taken in the 1940s.

Cub uniforms like Scout uniforms were for many years quite similar around the world. The Scouting movement was founded in Britain and many Scout groups in other countries followed the British example. Here the American uniforms were a bit of an outlier. This made figuring out the nationality of unidntified images a little complicated. British Cubs had sesrinctive green caps and jumpers. Americam Cun uniorms were fairly destinctive, done in blue. Many national Cub groups adopted uniforms that looked very similar to the ofiginal British Cub uniformwth green caps ad jumpers. American Cubs thus stood out in contrast to the British uniform and Ruropeans groups which adopted it. Thus destiinguishing European and Dominion Cub uniforms can be a challenge. Here HBU's internation readership is a great advanage. HBU reades can often spot their country's Cun uniforms. Here we will archive Cub uniforms that we can not readily identify. Hopefully readers will be able to tell us what country the Cubs are from.

Image 1: 1940s

We are confused by the uniform this unidentified is Cub is wearing (figure 1). The ranks and arrow heads on his shirt look like an American Cub, but the uniform is not blue. I'm not sure what color the Cub uniform here is, but it is definitely not dark blue. Botice the Sixer stripes on the sleeve. That looks British, but I think early American Cub uniforms also had them. Most early American Cubs wore knickers, but there were also short pants uniforms. American Cubs had knee socks with stripes, but they were dark blue socks with yellow stripes. The portrait is not dated, but we would guess was taken in the 1940s. It definitely was not taken in the 50s. A reader writes, "The Cub Scout in the photo, I believe, is definately American for numerous reasons. While dark blue and gold may have been the signature colours of the Cub Scouts in America until today, in 1941, the webelos cub scout rank was introduced. Webelos wore a different colour uniform, almost identical to the older Boy Scouts. This would explain the insignia that he is wearing which is undeniably American. The diamond shaped patches with a bobcat, wolf, and bear as well as the arrow heads on the left pocket are only used in America. The style of the neckerchief is also a lighter colour with dark stripes in the typical pattern of American scouting neckerchiefs. The '6' patch is also of the the typical American style red with a white number. It is the Pack number. The fact that he is wearing short trousers and knee socks would make it hard to decipher. However, I would disagree with the dating. The official uniform until 1947 had knickers. From 1947 onward it was long trousers. Short trousers saw a recurrence in the late-50s through the 60s, which means that this photo is likely from between 1959 and 1965. That would explain the quality of the photo and the fact that is is balck and white. Colour photography had not yet dominated the film industry. I'm also not sure about the hair style, but I think it was a normal hairstyle for the 50s and 60s. I would ask someone else about that." I think our reader may be right anout the boy being a Webelo and perhaps wearing a Scout uniform, with a Cub scarfe and Cub patches, athough we do not see a Webelo patch. Also the knee Socks are not night for a Scout. The Scub and Scout uniforms were changed in the 1940s, although we thoughts the dates were a little different. We have seen sone Cubs wearing short pants in the 30s and 40s, although knickers were more common in the 30s and long pants in the 40s, As a Cub in the early 50s, I am positive that the uniform predates the 50s.

Image 2: 1950s

Here we see an unidentifuied Cub, probably in the 1950s. He wears the classic peaked cap. Unfortunately we have no idea what color the uniform was. The shirt and shorts look to be the same color, but black-and-white can be misleading in this regard. British Cubs wore grey shorts, but this was less common in other countries. MMany countries did adopt the green jumpers worn by British Cubs. The neckerchief was very small. The shirt or top seems to be done in Rugby style, rather like a tunic. Note the Wolf Cub emblem on the shirt. He is a very new Cub as he hasn't earned any rank or other badges. Note he wears his belt over his shirt. That was a style we saw in the 1920s and 30s with German and other European youth groups. It was a military style. He has long short pants witn turn-over-top knee socks with volored bands and harter tabs. We would guess that he might be German or perhaps Belgian, but we are not at all sure. The house and back yard looks rather American, but the uniform dies not. This brings Canada to mind, but we have not seen Canadiabn Cubs wearing shirts like that. This leaves Europe. He clearly is not British. This leaves a small number of Western European countries. Hopefully our readers will be able to identify the uniform and tell us what country is involved here.

Image 3: 1968

Here we see an unidentified Cub. We known his name was Mark. And we know he came from an English speaking coutry, other than America and Britain which we know because of his uniform. We thought it might be Canadian, but foliage might be from Australian or New Zealand are possible. Hopefully readers will be able to identify the uniforms. An inscription on the back reads, "Mark Cub uniform again outside front fence." Unfortunaely we do do not have a closefup gibing us a cloe up of the badges which would help us identify the country. The telephone box in the backgrojund looks Britis, but the boy's uniform is definitely not British. It looks to us like a suburban community. Also the back, the photograph is dated October 1968 and we learm that Mark is 10 years old. Even without the date, the 1960s was apparent, in part because of the large bill on the peaked cap.