Help Identifying this Vintage Sleeping Bag Brand

I am trying to find info on a vintage sleeping bag brand.  The label says "COOP Associated Cooperative Richmond California."  If I had to guess I would say it was a late '60s/early '70s vintage.  It's a cool looking double zippered (i.e., two parallel zippers running the length of the bag) goose down bag intended for  mountaineering and extreme conditions. Below is a photo of the label.  Any help would be appreciated!

Two cheers for awesome gear that last forever. 

Associated Cooperatives was a wholesaler that supplied the Consumers' Cooperative of Berkeley (aka the Berkeley Co-Op) and a number of other food co-ops in and near California. When the Berkeley Co-Op when bankrupt in 1988, Associated Cooperatives lost their biggest member and went bankrupt as well. The Berkeley Co-Op had an outdoor shop (Wilderness Co-Op?) next to their north Berkeley location, on Shattuck and Cedar, that I think closed in the very early '80s. I remember buying a pair of Dachstein mitts there in about 1980. There's a really good chance that your sleeping bag was first bought from that store.

Mark Felber:  Thanks for the great info!

Clicked on this link on a whim... Turns out there are grocery stores native to the upper connecticut river valley that have this exact logo. I'm sure there's a global conspiracy behind this

http://coopfoodstore.coop/

I own probably exactly that bag, bought new in maybe 1979. The info about the Berkeley Co-op above us correct. They also had a wilderness supply store in Castro Valley near me that split from Co-op to be an independent store in CV for a couple of decades after AC and the Co-op shut their doors.

I ran into this post while searching to see if anyone might have posted the temp specs, though how that is measured these days is entirely different. The bag is so warm I can’t use it if the overnight temps are above freezing, but I don’t remember the exact number.  Haven’t done much hiking in those conditions in a long time, but previously when camping on snow the outside of the bag would be covered with ice from breath condensation dripping from the tent. 

That is actually a rare piece of outdoor gear history. The double zipper identifies it as a creation of Bill Simon, who holds the patent on it. Bill worked at the cooperative and started a section selling outdoor gear which was very successful. He went on to start Snow Lion which made top end sleeping bags and clothing for awhile in the 70's The double zipper prevents the edges of the sleeping bag from pinching down to nothing where a single zipper would. Bill Simon was instrumental in developing the asian manufacturing industry of sleeping bags and clothing. There is more information on Bill and snow lion at "Oregon photos" website. He also had a hand in early North Face and several other gear manufacturers. That bag you have was at the start of it all. I have several Snow Lion bags and they all perform as well today as they did when new. The down has held up remarkably well. Some of the blue and purple bags experienced an issue with the nylon die discoloring and ended up looking tie died but did not effect the structure of the nylon.

I leave this post for others who may have stumbled onto a coop sleeping bag so they may use it as bragging rights around the campfire. Old gear rules.

I had three Snow Lion bags (the first was Snowline, but they ran into copyright issues).

Got them at Selkirk Bergsport in Spokane. The double zipper one was too warm so I sold it for a profit.

Ackley The Improved wrote:

I had three Snow Lion bags (the first was Snowline, but they ran into copyright issues).

Got them at Selkirk Bergsport in Spokane. The double zipper one was too warm so I sold it for a profit.

My friend still has one of those double zipper SL bags. It hasn't been used in decades, probably less than 6X overall.

George Shaw wrote:

... The bag is so warm I can’t use it if the overnight temps are above freezing, but I don’t remember the exact number.  Haven’t done much hiking in those conditions in a long time, but previously when camping on snow the outside of the bag would be covered with ice from breath condensation dripping from the tent. 

Given the age of the bag and your preference for warmer weather camping, you've most likely developed other options but I thought I'd mention the possibility of shifting the down between top and bottom. Older baffled down bags seldom had side-block baffles that prevent this. You can easily test this by pulling apart the outer shell and inner liner of a baffle. In the top and bottom areas, you can do this until the baffle is almost flattened. If you can do the same throughout the side area between the two (opposite the zipper(s)), that means that you have continuous baffles and could shift the down.

Shift it all (or mostly all) to the top (by holding the open bag along its bottom zipper and shaking the hell out of it) and the bag gains a good 5 degC of extra warmth. Shift it to the bottom, where it will be mostly compressed by your body and lose its insulating value, and you have a warmer-weather bag. Of course, this only goes so far. Even with almost all the down at the bottom, some of it will not end up compressed and will still provide some insulation.

For the past 33 years, my wife and I have had the same sleeping bags for all seasons: Feathered Friends Widgeons that we custom-ordered with regular nylon shell instead of the Gore-tex standard (because we didn't trust the Gtex to last as long as the rest of the bag). Their original lower temp. specs were something like -18 or -20 C with the Gtex shell, so a bit less with the nylon shell. In the original design, the collar was also removable. Thanks to shifting the down and adding or removing the collar, we've slept comfortably in them from a bit below - 20 C to + 15 C. In really warm temperatures, they do get a bit sweaty but then we just leave the bags open.

Of course, it means that in warm weather, we're carrying extra down that we just intend to crush but we love the fact that, should the weather turn much colder than anticipated partway through the trip, we have bags that can handle it (and that's come in handy a few times).

We've tested the shifting option with other bag models bought for our daughters and found that in a winter bag with widely-spaced vertical and overstuffed baffles, the down that has been shifted to the bottom creeps back up through the night, making the bag unusable in warm weather. On a warmer 3-season bag with vertical baffles, this has not been an issue. Our Widgeons have trapezoidal baffles that do a great job of holding the down in place (top or bottom) throughout the night.

SOLD! FOR SALE!! I have a vintage SNOW LION Goose Down Sleeping Bag, Long, Double Zipper, Big Foot from 1976. It's 40 oz of down, and 32" x 85", with tons of loft.  Super warm! It's gently used, but some of the color is faded. It's been stored in a dry dark closet for over 30 years. No smoking, no pets, fragrance free household.  I'm in Berkeley. Please pass the info on to anyone who might be interested.  There's one on sale right now on EBay for $135 and another for $225. Any suggestions on what you think a reasonable price would be? Or make an offer.

Thanks!

I bought the same or a similar bag as the OP at the Berkeley Co-Op Wilderness Store around 1975. I was in Boy Scouts, had earned my Eagle, and was doing lots of backpacking in the Sierras. It's a great bag, I still have it and am hiking with it tomorrow at Pt. Reyes. I came here looking for the specs like the OP as it's definitely a *warm* bag; I can seldom zipper it all the way up. I recall seeing the tag from it a year ago and decided to take another look through the filing cabinet. I couldn't find it but, packrat that I am, I found their original catalog:

Tom O'Neill wrote:

I bought the same or a similar bag as the OP at the Berkeley Co-Op Wilderness Store around 1975. I was in Boy Scouts, had earned my Eagle, and was doing lots of backpacking in the Sierras. It's a great bag, I still have it and am hiking with it tomorrow at Pt. Reyes. I came here looking for the specs like the OP as it's definitely a *warm* bag; I can seldom zipper it all the way up. I recall seeing the tag from it a year ago and decided to take another look through the filing cabinet. I couldn't find it but, packrat that I am, I found their original catalog:

Any chance you could scan and post the whole catalog?

I love vintage outdoor catalogs.