In an effort to improve my Federal officer impression, I recently ordered Nick's officer's hat cord and the infantry bugle #3. They just arrived today, and I'm still drooling over them (making the keyboard a little sloppy. I'll discuss the hat badge in another review. As it says on the page advertising the hat cord, it certainly is not your typical sutler row item. The cord is very well made, with none of the shoddiness from the over-produced sutler versions. The acorns are the real pip, however! They're not just big blobs of "gold" cording with what looks like black yarn netting around them--the gold/black chevron pattern from the cord is continued onto the acorns (in a larger scale, of course) and the acorn tips actually end with the final gold striping forming a six-pointed star pattern! It's that kind of attention to detail that makes Nick's products so authentic and such a good value.