Black Private Purchase SS Officer Schirmütze

**BOB COLEMAN** · 04-21-2011, 09:35 PM

An interesting period black officer visor cap that is private purchase. There are no RZM stampings on the visor or tag under the sweat shield.

**Espenlaub Militaria** · 04-21-2011 09:35 PM

We also buy and trade your items and full collections!

**BOB COLEMAN** · 04-21-2011, 10:19 PM

I have thought this cap is early and originally had the 1st pattern insignia and had been rebadged in period. The present insignia is attached quite tight. Pulling it off to check for earlier insignia is out of the question.

**davejb** · 04-21-2011, 10:36 PM

Quite right Bob, you know what killed the cat!!!

**SteveR** · 04-22-2011, 02:16 AM

Love it friend.
SteveR

**stonemint** · 04-22-2011, 08:52 PM

Bob, you know I like that visor! (I always dug private-purchase over RZM "issue" pieces)>

BTW, I figured out the maker. It is the earliest logo used by Schellenberg of Berlin. I estimate they used this style from 1933-36.

Thanks for posting over here!

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 04-22-2011, 09:12 PM

Your is a nice hat, and surely not all black SS caps came with the marks that others wrongly describe as "textbook," a truly absurd term. Saris in his insightful work on same makes the observation that caps appeared un marked (i.e. RZM and SS marks), either because they were made prior to the regulations ordering same, or simply because someone did not heed the regulations, which was hardly infrequent. The caps with the marks and tags were also retailed in those braune Laeden entitled to sell them in their number though may black SS officer caps were retailed by the RZM as were enlisted caps. I own more than one black SS cap without such marks, though I prefer the latter to the former. The Trikotage cap cover is the exception, but entirely acceptable. I also would leave the insignia in situ. Also, RZM tags do fall out or get ripped out, or whatever, and such a cap could have had one at one point.

Dogma and doctrine made worse by these websites and mediocre secondary reference works hardly make collecting easier. We live in an age of fundamentalism, and those of us who embrace making up our minds on the fact of a given case, which vary, will diverge from the Zeitgeist. Besides the task appears far easier when one deploys a check list (incomplete, incorrect) to make the difficulties of the thing seem easier, when it is not.

Bob's cap is a nice one. I would not be able to generalize about its value, nor would I want to. I guess for many, it is not as nice as the marked up piece, but suum cuique.

PS this image is of a war time I think made Mueller Muenchen cap with an RZM tag, but no marks, and otherwise not remarkable. I looked at this cap in person. It has long been on a website, but it is quite real. It diverges from the "textbook" hoo haa, which is a pity for someone who could give it a good home. I am not paid to say this, either, dear readers. This cap is also made of the same quality textile as was used in the dinner jacket.

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 04-22-2011, 09:27 PM

This cap is an early Mueller cap which is in the Wilkins book and came from Shea, it has the Mueller logo and an early tag in it, all of which is illustrated in the Wilkins book. These images did I not make, but the cap is in my collection, since one reader here thinks I do not actually own any of this stuff.
Whether I do or not is immaterial, but these illustrations speak to Bob Coleman's question.

I hardly need note that after early 1935 such maker marks were forbidden, but one finds them in earlier caps. Thus, black SS officer caps appear with a black silken or imitation silk interior, with the Sonderanfertigung interior with runes and tags in plentitude, and like this more or less like non NSDAP caps with normal maker marks. Of course, so do the fakes, but Bob's cap, and this one here, and another very handsome piece I own of which I have no photos have such interiors. These correspond to NSDAP PL caps, more or less, which retained private maker marks despite the prohibition on same. It may be that such items were bespoke, i.e. made to order, while the firm was an RZM licensed firm versus a contract made cap sold en masse. Frankly, the issue is pretty secondary.

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 05-08-2012, 04:34 AM

I would not hold my breath for the authenticity of the Koenigsberg marked piece, truth be told. Did you examine the latter one when it was with its former owner who is your neighbor is he not? The tunic you show is now mine. The cap is not. Lubstein made many black enlisted caps, but I have never seen one with RZM tag and black or even Sonderanfertigung interior.

**stonemint** · 05-08-2012, 04:53 AM

by Friedrich-Berthold

I would not hold my breath for the authenticity of the Koenigsberg marked piece, truth be told. Did you examine the latter one when it was with its former owner who is your neighbor is he not? The tunic you show is now mine. The cap is not. Lubstein made many black enlisted caps, but I have never seen one with RZM tag and black or even Sonderanfertigung interior.

F-B, no, I never did get a chance to do an in-hand on the Koenigsberg piece. You are correct, it was once owned by my friend in AZ. As far as the other one (the Erel Extra) I cannot recall now who owned that one. It was originally posted on the GDC site during its heyday.

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 05-08-2012, 04:58 AM

Thanks. A person known to you and me (whose hats tend to be in books and who has lots and lots of primary research material...) gave the Koenigsberg piece the down check. The other I recall from the German Daggers site and am more hopeful of it.
However, if you look at the crown piping as well as other things with said East Prussian cap, its shape, the cap band and on and on, it does not spiral into confidence.
The tunic is completely real and appeared at Manion's in 1978.

I think there was a set to about the Koenigsberg piece on the German daggers site. Maybe our Bob C and Bob Hritz can recall. Truth be told, I never had the Koenigsberg thing in hand, either, but the tunic is good as gold. I even have the Manion's catalog whence it appeared. The tunic and a cap in this picture (with the cap above it with the Danziger badge) appeared at the same time in 1978.

I will have to scan the catalog.
Odd how these things go in deep circles across the gulf of time. (the pages of Manion's catalog enclosed are indeed from the year 1978 as kept in my files...)

I hope I do not rain on anyone's parade.