The Ask Jeeves Thread!

[BenVK]

Any and all questions about cloth headgear can be posted here.

No question too simple or too complex so ask away.

Thanks to Tony for coming up with this idea.

Fire away gentlemen.

[Patrick Lewis]

Why is coloured Piping such a big deal on SS caps? is it because its rare?

Cheers, Pat

[spandau]

Hi Pat,

cracking question and the first hopefully of many ! The answer is YES ! they are very rare.

The reason why waffen SS caps with different branch piping are so rare is because regulations only permitted the branch waffenfabre to be worn for about a year before they changed..this happened around 1940. Thus the limited production time window coupled to the fact that the waffen ss had yet to expand from the pre-war ss-vt formations meant not many of them were made.

Hence the ss premium plus scarcity equals great excitment when one turns up. And the price tag to boot !

Hope this helps but need to look up the actual dates for regs changes as I can't remember them of the top of my head.

cheers

tony

[Patrick Lewis]

Thanks Tony

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Hi Pat,

cracking question and the first hopefully of many ! The answer is YES ! they are very rare.

The reason why waffen SS caps with different branch piping are so rare is because regulations only permitted the branch waffenfabre to be worn for about a year before they changed..this happened around 1940. Thus the limited production time window coupled to the fact that the waffen ss had yet to expand from the pre-war ss-vt formations meant not many of them were made.

Hence the ss premium plus scarcity equals great excitment when one turns up. And the price tag to boot !

Hope this helps but need to look up the actual dates for regs changes as I can't remember them of the top of my head.

cheers

tony

The other piece here is that the officer corps of the Waffen SS was never very large, and that of the SSTV and SSVT was quite small. However, I am quite convinced, based on much evidence, that Himmler's order was also ignored, in turn. Grey SS caps are pretty rare even with white piping. The specifics of the orders and the changes are in Mollo's books on SS uniform. I suppose they are also in the Shea Beaver volume, too. There is much collector lore associated with this fact, but authentic caps with Waffenfarbe are few and far between.

[locloc08]

It is common knowledge that SS caps with Waffenfarbe were worn well after the official 1940 wear-out date. What I am wondering is how much evidence there is (if any) that branch piped caps were actually produced in any capacity after said date.

Thanks, Tony

[Patrick Lewis]

I asked a question to Tony about the masking band on Imperial caps. And Tony was very helpful and I know more about them.

But was the masking band ever used after WW1? I dont see why because the caps after the first world war didint have the big red band around them.

An example of a masking band...


Did the masking bands just die out after the first world war?

Cheers, Pat

[spandau]

Pat

stop asking questions !! (only joking)

Well the introduction of the universal field cap in 1917 negated the need for masking bands as they had a field grey cap band. The reichswehr adopted this colour system for their field caps as well.

The only example of masking bands I can think off post 1918 is the white one used by umpires in manouvers.

Good question.

cheers

tony

[NDShooter]

I have a question...

What is the holy grail of Cloth Headgear?

[BOB COLEMAN]

I have a question...

What is the holy grail of Cloth Headgear?

The answer to this question would likely lie with the collecting interests of each individual collector. For me, a Hitler war era gray visor cap would be followed by one of his prewar brown caps. This would be followed by one of Goring's fancy oakleaf band embroidered caps.