Mask Colour

[Palisadeur]

I'm wondering when and why the trend for mask colouring went from white to black?

Reading a book recently; The Book of Fencing, E.B.Cass, 1930, states in it's uniform requirements a white mask - so that places it after 1929 (in America). In conjunction with this, an episode of Nero Wolfe Mysteries featured a murder in an American Salle of the 1950's with white masks too. That could just be a bit of cinematic license taken, but the show was fairly accurate in it's costuming so perhaps it happened post-50's...
I assumed that the white mask (and uniform) was to better enable 'chalking', as a means of point detection before electric fencing was around, but wikipedia states:

Starting with épée in the 1930s, side judges were replaced by an electrical scoring apparatus, with an audible tone and a red or green light indicating when a touch landed. Foil was electrified in the 1950s, sabre in the 1980s

...which would indicate that it was more an aesthetic trend than a practical one.

Anyone have any more info or insight on this?

ta.

[SJCFU#2]

I suspect they weren't so much "white" as "light metallic gray" (i.e. bare metal). There was no need for the mesh to be insulated until foil was electrified in the mid 50's, plus just about every older masks I've seen had bare mesh.

edit: There was also a stage in the early 20-th century when the AFLA (predecessor to the USFA) regularly vacillated between white and black uniforms, sometime even requiring a combination of both, such as a white jacket and black glove.

[DHCJr]

The FIE had a white rule at one point. At one World Championship, Santelli sponsored the US Team and for those who have been around awhile know that they used Brown Leather. All were failed for that.

If you look on the inside of a white faced mask or even the better Sabre mask, you will see they are not white or bare metal. They are Black.

This is to help with contrast seeing through the mesh.

[Inquartata]

I have a couple of old Castello masks: leather sides and tops, bare mesh front.

I don't think that the marking tips had anything to do with it, since the mask wasn't a target for foil and I'm not sure the dye would have marked paint, as opposed to fabric, anyway.

Maybe I'll ask Skip Shurtz if he turns up today. He did epee in that era.

[Rock]

I have a few masks from late '60s-early '70s that have white insulation on the the outside of the mesh and black on the inside. My first thought is that putting one color insulation on both sides of the mesh could save a manufacturing step.

[DHCJr]

I had a blue mask at control today. The front and both the inside and outside of the sides were blue, but the inside of the from was flat black.

I even looked at some black masks. The insides were a flat black, but the outside was not.

[Rock]

Yes. The fact that colored masks are acceptable now, and fencers are willing to pay for a specific color, will make the extra manufacturing step financially worthwhile for the maker.
In fact, since some manufacturing steps cost much less than they used to, equipment dealers might not bother to differentiate production costs *.

[*. If the insulating/painting process is computerized, there would likely be no difference in production cost regardless of the color combination - e.g., black/black, white/black, blue/black, etc.]

If I didn't have to do laundry and pay bills now, I would just ask the manufacturers about this.

But -
1. I don't care that much, and
2. regarding the the OP's question, I don't know much about armorer rules before 1967, and don't have more knowledge to contribute.

[Inquartata]

If you look on the inside of a white faced mask or even the better Sabre mask, you will see they are not white or bare metal. They are Black.

My Uhlmann mask is blackened inside; my LP visor mask is not. ( The mesh surrounding the visor, I mean. )

Not that one needs it with a window in the thing...