Gallery

SOMERTON MAN MYSTERY
IMAGE GALLERY

Over the last several years I have managed to amass a collection of images related to the Somerton Man case. They range from the suitcase contents to possible SM candidates and whole lot more.

Acknowledgement
I want to acknowledge those people who freely gave input and provided some of the research and sometimes images that will appear in this gallery. More than happy to include their names with their permission. The background is that we all belonged to the original Facebook group, 'World Search for a Rare Copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam' set up by Professor Abbott and then later we set up our own group known as 'Inner Sanctum'. The bottom line is that I make no claim to being the sole author and I am grateful for having had the experience of working with a super team of researchers.

In the end there is no one person who can rightly claim that they are the premier source with perhaps one exception and that being Detective Sergeant Gerry Feltus (Retired) who had the Somerton Man case on his desk as a Cold Case and who actually knew and interviewed Jestyn.

Anything I do here by way of extending the range and depth of information on the case will have its roots in the work done by Gerry in his book, The Unknown Man. You'll see a link to Gerry's website to the right of this page.

This page starts off the Gallery and I will be adding more links over the coming days and weeks. I thought that the best approach would be to show some of the images here and then place a link to Google Drive where you can find more from the files described.

First off the rank is a collection of images of the suitcase items.

Scarf, more like a shawl? Notice label bottom right of scarf

Image enhanced view of suitcase and contents

Video still

Negative view, sometimes negatives
show up additional information

Lamonte Tartan

This Lamonte Tartan is similar to the SM version, however so is the Black Watch tartan.

McDonald/Keane Tartan. This was found on a tartan search, web based, the notation made mention of Mcdonald and Keane families.

Irish variation of the Keane tartan

Dressing Gown

With regards to the dressing gown, some research unearthed the details to be found on the sleeves of similar gowns to SM's

Ties

SMs ties.

Tootal Ties Ad from 1948

                     Elasta Strap trousers

Negative of inside of trousers

Elasta Strap Trousers 

Trousers, button missing

Close up of trouser pocket/laundry labels. Very feint.

Laundry Marks

Sundry Contents

Soapdish

Group, toothbrush, loupe, tie.

Loupe? Notice the 'grips' within the

loupe..



Razor Strop Close Up, adjacent to brush handle below

One effort to identify the toothpaste, unsuccessful

Lion Toothpaste? Razor Strop

Engraved brush end

Cigarettes

The man was found with a packet of Army Club cigarettes which had Kensitas cigarettes inside it. This was apparently common practice in those days, the idea was to not let others know that you had a better quality cigarette in order to conserve your supplies. Another option was to make others think that you were ex service.

Just below you can see an image of a 1948 style packet of Army Club cigarettes and the same year packet of Kensitas.

Kensitas 1948

The Lighter

The lighter was Australian made by Green & Co. It came in 2 variations, one was military as you will see below and the other was civilian. What you will notice is that this is not a throw away 'zippo' style of lighter. this lighter has a separate fuel tank into which lighter fuel was poured, a wick that extended into the tank and of course wheel and flint.

The question is that, given that SM was a relatively heavy smoker, what happened to the packet o flints and lighter fluid that every smoker with a lighter, especially one with a fuel tank, would carry with them?

      

                                   
Fuel Tank and Lighter fluid advert together with a similar ad for lighter flints.

 

                                           A 1953 Ad for Lighter fluid

Group

New Pelaco, Australian made, Shirt from case

Close up of scissors

Scissors maker

Toothpaste

Canadian Army 'housewife' kit
including Barbour's Thread. Slightly different card shape

           

               

Barbour's Waxed Thread.

The only item that tied SM to the suitcase, this thread was 

in common use. Of note, is that Barbour's threads were military 

issue items and included in 'housewife' packs.      

Feather Stitch Jacket. The machines capable to do feather
stitching only existed in the US at the time.

Glass dish and button

Button

Labels Removed

LETTER CARDS

Contrary to common belief, the 'envelopes' found in the suitcase 

were in fact pre-paid letter cards

Example lettercard

Negative of a lettercard

Pencils

Note the scissors, brush handle, knife, scabbards ( made from wrapped zinc) and the black case to the right is believed to be for the 'cut throat' razor. You can just see the corner of the razor strop above the piece of zinc plate.

Notice how bright and shiny the lighter is..

Pencil sharpener

John Lobb, London & Paris. Similar shoes to SM

I contacted Lobbs and John Lobb told me that the number 204B was one of theirs but, that number belonged to a pair of mens riding boots.

SM's shoes

Negative of SM's shoes, Wide Welt

SM Shoes, close up and colour enhanced

Shoe Polish

Typical shoe ID marks location

US Military Issue

Case and contents

Detectives show case and contents

This next part of the Gallery is dedicated to the Torn Piece and

the book.

This is believed to be an image of the actual torn piece which is still in existence. Note the staining to the left side and the various crease marks which suggest that perhaps the paper was tightly folded up at one time. Please note that according to a well respected printer, this was done with a Letterpress and the font was made from pure lead not a lead alloy

The following 8 images show how the paper may have been removed/torn from the page of the book so as to not tear from the edge and to produce a similar shape to the actual torn piece.

 The page above represents the two pages in the book

 A fold is made part way in to the target page..

A small starter tear is made into the crease/fold..

A shape is torn..

 The page is flattened...

 The piece is torn out...

 Here's the result, a piece similar to the actual torn piece...

Finally here's the shape left in the page similar to what the Police would have seen when the book was handed in and that enabled them to match the torn piece to the book. 

Interestingly Detective Brown maintains that this was the case and others who apparently have better knowledge state that a large tear was made into the page and that's why the Police had the paper type matched and no mention was made of the torn piece shape. If that was the case, why did the Police go to the trouble of preparing a number of folded edge versions of the torn piece to photograph and hand out to the Press?

Below is an image believed to be of the front cover of the actual book:

This is an image believed to be from The Adelaide Advertiser in 1949:

You can see how much different the torn area is, a copy of the actual torn piece has been inserted for demonstration purposes.  It is generally believed that this was a similar copy acquired by the Advertiser who then tore out the section. Bear in mind all they had was a rectangular image that had been folded at the edges so they wouldn't have known the actual shape. It may be worth talking further with News Ltd to see if they have any more images or even the actual copy of the book somewhere in their archives?

This next image on the left is of a similar version of the book but in a different colour courtesy of JW. here you see the left hand page next to the Tamam Shud page. There is a copy of the words 'Tamam Shud' from this version and a comparison image will be uploaded shortly. The comparison shows distinct differences between the font images in close up.