"What does the word "stock" mean?" Topic

As I mentioned in a another topic I am projecting a 28mm prussian army and I bought a book titled "Armies and Uniforms of the Seven Years War" to guide about the painting. The problem is that I can not find out what is "stock". I found the meaning of cuff, lapels and pom poms but it seems that "stock " is a not a very commom word nowadays. Someone help me, please?

Thank you in advance.

Paco Lorenzo fom Sevilla, Spain.

Stock has a wide variety of meanings. Given that the other terms to which you refer are items of clothing, I presume that the book is referring to the neck-cloth worn by the soldiers, when it talks about a stock. the link below might also be of interest:
link

Hope this helps,
Ruarigh

i believe the stock is a piece of material under the collar.
its purpose is to compel the soldier to keep his head up.
(the soldiers of course hated it as it chaffed the neck)

Oooooh,…, clear as the water Ruarigh. Thanks for the link, very useful. I hope to attach a gallery of my prussians in a short future.

Stock or neckstock – un collar o un collarin del cuero o del paño. El collar fue hecho generalmente del cuero durante las guerras napoleónicas.

The stock was originally stiff leather.

What they said, a stiff leather collar.

Not to be confused with stockings, gun stocks, or the stocks. The last use of the word stocks refered to a form of public punishment in which the offender was locked into a wooden frame, very similar to the pillory.

The neckstock was not a strictly military item – it was commonly worn by men through the century. It came in several varieties – some military units wore a leather one (that's where the US Marines got their nickname from, for example), but there were also plain, fancy, ruffled, lace, etc., in both military and civilian use. Obviously, militarily it was the higher ranks that had the fancier ones. It was the forerunner of the necktie and only the leather ones would help keep a head up. But they were worn by the marines, at least, to protect the neck from cutlass cuts when fighting on shipboard. Personally, I think it's a fallacy that it was worn to keep the head up, as the cloth ones (the vast majority of them by far) wouldn't have done that any more than a necktie today does it.

"But they were worn by the marines, at least, to protect the neck from cutlass cuts when fighting on shipboard."

Yes, sheer fallacy. Kind of like the British wearing red coats to hide the blood when they got shot.

Leather neck stocks were common to the Americans at some point, and worn by the army as well as marines.

British soldiers often wore horse hair neck stocks during the AWI period. The often wore rollers, or simply what we would call a scarf bound around their neck while in the field. British marines wore velvet neck stocks as part of their regular uniforms, but wore rollers to, when on board ship, or perhaps while on land as well.

Oddly enough, if you really look closely at the portraits of the period for British, the black neck stocks are what really stands out about the neck, as the collar of the shirt really only just comes over the top of the neck stock. So, paint your British, at least, with black necks with just a weeee bit of white at the top (if you could even see this against flesh).

Neck stocks were usually worn with a brass clasp for enlisted, which in real life often seems to pop open.