Back to the old bag

Great Sunday afternoon; balmy temps (for here and now), a nice amber-coloured libation, and a few minutes spent switching from the new daily carry bag back to the old daily carry bag.

By old I mean the bag that I've been using since before I was old; namely the standard, generic canvas map case from days long gone by. This is the one I'm talking about. It's sold by just about anyone with anything camo or OD in their inventory for about $12, give or take a buck or two. There have been several updates over the past twenty years (a pocket here, a snap there) but I still prefer the model that I picked up my first day at Benning; 2 big interior sections, a small pocket on the outer wall, and some stitched elastic for pens and pencils. These days I only carry black, but you can get OD, woodland (for nostalgists, I guess), and a couple other colours.

The bag that I switched back from, which I had been giving a protracted test drive, is the Swiss Gear Vertical Travel bag.  A pretty good bag, all in all. I generally have few beefs with Swiss Gear gear, which tends to be pretty solidly constructed for what it is.  But this one had a few minor marks against it:

1. It  is noticeably smaller than the generic map case, and unfortunately it is smaller in all the wrong places. The main cargo area is not quite large enough to hold a normal-sized magazine (although Monocle just barely fits) - I should have taken the hint on day one.
2. Had to cut off the pad on the shoulder strap, which was apparently made of teflon and lard and ensured that the shoulder strap could NOT POSSIBLY stay on your shoulder. Once the pad was off, though, it stayed in place pretty well.
3. There is a conspicuous Swiss flag on the outer wall - an deviation from my usual 'no logo' policy, but I never got around to removing it.

The Swiss Gear bag was also about $25. Not an unreasonable price for what it is, but sort of a smack in light of the fact that the generic map case is at least twice the bag for half the price.

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