Cav Officer Schirmmutze

[S.Vestae]

Hello the cap Fan, I show you a interesting cap, your opinion are welcome...

[stonemint]

The Erel M-45 aka the Late Late War Erel--and a rarely-seen small size (probably why it was unissued). I am a firm believer in these. I like it. Wolfty, pull the spring and re-shape it a bit.

[BenVK]

Prehaps our interpretation of when these Tellerform hats were supposed to have been phased out is open to serious doubt?
Did you guys see this one?
Another cap for i.d. Please help if you can.

[S.Vestae]

Thanks my 2 super cap moderators !

Agree ! this is a very late eReL model cap, a economical manufacture, the eReL logo has been deleted, the black visor is a soft model, sw and lining in medium quality, only the wool seems to be a superior quality

About the period, very Late 1944 - 45 looks honnest, Nick Zimba was the first defence about this late model in waf, a long thread exist, I have no problem with this model cap, original of course with love

ps : agree also Stonny, a unissued cap for sure !
I have a PZ Grenadier in mod very late ditto, I will post one day

thanks all
Sebastien

[stonemint]

Ben, Wolftys just has a misshapen spring, so it is not actually a tellerform. All these M-45 Erel have smaller peaks than the mid-late war ones, but the Sattel is still there (as is the padding, altho less as well).

You are right about the PzG visor--I was surprised to see it. Then again, the Lodz Ghetto was making Tellerform visors in 1942.

[stonemint]

I have had a chance to look at a few of the post-1945 visors made by Erel before they became "VEB 1856" in 1950. They are actually very different when you compare them with the M-45 visor. Only thing in common really is the fold-over sweatband and the Lackierte Pappschirm (pressed paper visor).

However, I do not think NTZ will be persuaded.....

[BenVK]

Well, I remember how the discussion first developed concerning the "late war erel" and a lot of theories were thrown about including the one about immediate post war manufacture for souvenir hungry occupation troops. I might have even suggested that theory myself! I don't know, I just choose to avoid these caps because they are so far removed from what I would want from an extramutzen made from a quality mutzenmacher that had no late, mid or any wartime restrictions in the materials or quality they choose to utilise.

On the other side of the coin, I will gladly snap up inferior quality SS schirmmutzen when the price is right. There are cheapo wartime SS hats as FB recently said, and he is spot on. Never the less, everyone feels comfortable with them regardless of hat making knowledge so therefore the prices that they command today remain steady. A safe bet if you will. Much like collecting the black ones with all the RZM stamps and lables etc etc. You don't really have to study hats that much to collect those. It's all done for you in respect of the numerous pointers installed in the hats themselves.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

The sources of the time make abundantly clear that the production of all textiles had to be rationalized, simplified, and made more a thing of industry versus handicrafts, to say nothing of the overwhelmingly documented collapse of raw material supplies in the later phase of the war. All of these are simple historical facts. Moreover, younger collectors cannot recall nor cannot understand that even in the 1960s, warehouses of this junk were still turning up and ending up in US war surplus stores or second hand clothing stores, i.e. Luftwaffe Fliegerblusen, DAK pith helmets and the like. Let us avoid the circular and ahistorical "debates" which have occurred elsewhere and cleave to the evidence. I have owned caps of this type, and though they are not especially poetic, they have their place, surely.
The black SS caps from the early 1930s are generally far superior in their quality from those of the late 1930s, i.e. from a time when the SS was much smaller versus the era of its rapid pre-war increase in size amid the rigors of the 4 year plan and its price and material controls, which are all described in great detail in the UM. However, this kind of evidence is more than bridge too far for other kinds of interpretation, where the level of analysis is table side at the MAX or the SOS, where little light does penetrate in the course of things.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

This hat here is more nicely made than......

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Than this one...which is more frequently found...
This is surely also a nice cap, but it is plainly more mass produced with less leather and handicraft than the contract cap of the era 1938/9. The trend only became more so, indeed, once the shortages and deprivations of the war took hold. And, the other point being that the skilled craftsmen and workers who made these did not simply remain at work, but once Gobbels proclaimed total war in 1943, they got reassigned either to the services or other parts of war industry with a higher claim to them. This latter fact goes unremarked in the coffee table books, but is no secret to anyone familiar with wartime German society and economy. The shortage of skilled hands to make these was a constant theme at the time.

Let me make a final, didactic point: the internet savant and know it all who generalizes based on anachronism or faulty and incomplete evidence is no friend of the beginning collector, who is easily swayed by mis information and is imprisoned in a state of confusion to be manipulated by the terrible simplifier of the digital sphere. It is a real shame when authentic regalia that diverges from some wild a$$ "norm" gets damned as "fake."