A Couple of BGS Sumpftarn Caps

**Spitace41** · 03-14-2016, 02:51 PM

Hi all. I picked these up yesterday and thought they may be of interest to those interested in BGS items. I believe these caps are quite scarce? From what I have read I believe both to be original and the one at least to be quite early. I am unsure as to why one has a metal cockade as I thought they were meant to be fabric but maybe this was an unofficial modification or just someone putting it on by mistake. Any comments are welcome. Cheers.

**Espenlaub Militaria** · 03-14-2016 02:51 PM

We also buy and trade your items and full collections!

**CBH** · 03-14-2016, 03:14 PM

Beautiful hats you have there , not sure why the metal cockade maybe officers . If you have the time please post these in the modern came thread just for reference . Thanks for sharing .

**collectinsteve** · 07-13-2016, 04:35 AM

I'm bumping this one as it's a good way to alert people to the differences between legitimate BGS Sumpftarn caps and the vast sea of fakes.

The two above are original. The first, with bevo cockade, is 100% intact. The second one had the bevo cockade removed during demilling and someone stuck a standard Bundeswehr/BGS/Polizei metal cockade in its place. It is absolutely not correct to have on there. Buttons and cockades are more often than not missing. Unfortunately the original cockades are pretty specific to this hat and are very difficult to procure. Ironically I was putting one on one of my spares tonight. Took me about 10 years to find the correct one (there are several similar types, but trust me... close is not the same as correct).

These hats were produced from 1958-1962 along with the first Sumpftarn uniform. The second type (1967-1975) had no hat, nor trousers for that matter. Between 1962 and 1967 Sumpftarn items were worn but not produced.

The value in this condition tends to be around EUR 100 on ebay.de. The first one, which is 100% intact, could go for as much as EUR 120. No, I am not kidding. These are quite hard to find and people fight over them with disregard to the safety of their bank accounts.

Bundeswher hats have the two vents and one row of stitching, BGS always has one air vent and multiple rows of stitching. Fakes tend to be in the Bundeswehr style, are made from water proof backed cloth, and have no liner. There's thousands of these out there starting from the 1980s. If a hat doesn't look like the above, 99.9% chance it's a fake. I'd say 100% chance however I have a high quality 1970s type with liner which might have been an officer's private purchase.

Steve

**CBH** · 07-13-2016, 03:09 PM

Welcome to the Forum Steve ,I always like to see more camouflage collectors here . Also the fakes have no stitching on the brim .

**collectinsteve** · 07-13-2016, 07:34 PM

Now that you mention it... you're right! There's no stitching on the brim at all. At least not for the typical STURM type.

Camo is definitely my primary passion.

Steve

**CBH** · 07-14-2016, 12:32 AM

There are some good treads on camo here .

**collectinsteve** · 07-14-2016, 04:37 AM

I just noticed that the first hat, the one that is complete and dated 1961, uses the 2nd Pattern cloth that was used for Zeltbahns instead of the cloth used for the jackets and trousers. The second cap, the one missing the cockade, is dated 1958 and uses the 1st Pattern cloth.

I have pictures of several other 1961 hats and they are all made by Bamberger and are the 2nd Pattern. I also have some 2nd Pattern hoods. My assumption is that production was winding down and they ran short on 1st Pattern cloth. Instead of printing more they went to supplies of 2nd Pattern. I've seen only one jacket with 2nd Pattern cloth and it was a mix of both 1st and 2nd Pattern. Sadly no date seen on that particular jacket.

The 1st Pattern Sumpftarn is easily to differentiate from the 2nd Pattern by looking where the red and green shapes come together. The 1st Pattern has very little separating them, 2nd Pattern has a very distinct separation. You can see it by comparing the two hats.

Steve

**CBH** · 07-14-2016, 02:04 PM

I hope you'll start to post some photos .

**collectinsteve** · 07-15-2016, 02:52 AM

Here you go!

From what I can tell most of the jackets were produced in 1958 and 1959, trousers 1959 and 1960. I don't think I've seen any trousers made after 1960 and I don't have any record of jackets made after 1959. Though I do suspect some jackets were made 1960 or even 1961 but the dates are washed out.

Zeltbahn production started in 1959 and went through 1963 always using 2nd Pattern. As I said above, I've seen some hoods and hats made in 2nd Patten as well as at least one jacket made with a mix of 1st and 2nd Pattern cloth.

The 4 pocket pull over smocks are all undated but are all in 1st Pattern. If stocks for cloth were exhausted around 1959/1960 this indicates the smocks were made prior to this date. However, there's no solid information as to when they were manufactured that I'm aware of.

When production started again in 1967 only a jacket and parka were manufactured. At some point the nearly useless rain apron was introduced and sometime later the GSG-9 helmet covers were made. Also some limited production frag vests were produced in the mid 1980s. All items were made in the 2nd Pattern.

As far as I know that's all the official items that were ever made in Sumpftarn.

Steve

**CBH** · 07-15-2016, 02:17 PM

Thanks Steve , glad to see you posting , that can be a bit of a learning curve . Thank you for the additional information on what must be one of my favourite camouflage patterns .