Collect the Waffenfarbe or collect the quality?

[Friedrich-Berthold]

I think this could turn into a very interesting thread.

Personally, I could care less about the colour of the piping. I simply buy what comes my way that interests me in terms of maker, quality and price.
I've tried hard to understand why collectors must have one of each colour.
I still don't get it though.

I like Panzer caps for my own reasons, but I am with you that the quality of the cap is more important than some arbitrary assumption about one part of the armed forces being superior to the other.

[M18922]

I would go for the artillery cap as its gorgeous. I like to collect caps that are interesting and complete.

This is probably wierd and a bit strange but if I see a boxed cap I am all over it, regardless if its the same cap or the same maker, its all interesting to me.

To conclude, I appreciate all type of waffenfarbe but its the quality that makes it for me.

Cheers, Pat

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Part of this is the preferences and attitudes of combat arms people vis a vis others in the rear area, i.e. combat service support and such, who are looked down upon.
Without putting too fine a point it, I have some military experience, and such embodies natural customs and mores as exist in all services. For instance, I have no idea why artillery is somehow held in low esteem, granted their tactical and operational role, as well as those notable people who were gunners....Scharnhorst, for instance. Of course, in the late 18th century and the early 19th century, guards infantry and cavalry of the Prussian army disdained gunners as bourgeois scribblers and too dependent on book knowledge, which was the enemy of character, bravery and aristocratic elan.
When I was young, I wanted solely caps with no wear, whereas today, I am far less fussy.
I actually have a great fondness for cavalry caps, too. I sold off the nice ones I had.
Also, examples to which is ascribed Knight's Cross holders and whatever always put my on my guard as to the possibility of lies and frauds.
The least item, so long as it is authentic, is always pleasing. I also very much seek general staff caps because of personal preference.

[S.Vestae]

I collect the bargain price !

[Friedrich-Berthold]

From the beginning of my career, I found the contrast of the Rosarot and the Fieldgrey always to evoke some essential truth about German regalia, though. I recall the thrill of seeing such a cap from a distance at a gun show in the late 1960s, the surge of adrenalin, the skipping a beat of the heart and the clenching feeling where the 35 dollars was not to purchase said cap......

[Friedrich-Berthold]

I think I also collected caps because of the odd tags and arcane marks.

- - Updated - -

I collect the bargain price !

Probably a winning strategy over all others....

[stonemint]

It depends on what you collect for. Myself, I prefer quality and condition vs branch of service (and that is why I have some duplicates in terms of 'farbe).

To me, these hats are the apotheosis of military headgear, any country, any era. The finer the materials and craftmanship, the more I appreciate a cap. Each one is an indiviual work of art to me, and what I celebrate is not the soldier who wore it, but the person (and company) that made it. Obviously, I like my caps minty, as I want the hat to look as much like it did when it left the Muetzenmacher's hands some 70 years ago (and moth bites/mouse nibbles only serve to detract from that).

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Carmine red also has its own poetry, and the history of the Prussian German general staff makes this color more lustrous yet still.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

I also cannot fathom the 21st century tendency to think that a certain cap maker of the era was, at the time, somehow akin to haute couture designer labels, or prestige objects as basket ball sneakers as propagated generally around here.
Seldom in the history of military regalia has a greater and more fallacious anachronism been perpetrated by so many on yet more.

Collectors may prize one cap maker over the other, and for their reasons, assign it cult status, but this was surely not done at the time. I imagine that the army clothing cooperation chose Lubstein because it made a good cap at a sound price, and maybe Lubstein had an inside track with procurement people, which, granted the reality of military procurement, was probably the case.

I would like to see evidence of this fetish in the primary sources. I have read these things carefully, and it is wholly absent from the years 1933-1945.

[ObKrieger]

I like Panzer caps for my own reasons, but I am with you that the quality of the cap is more important than some arbitrary assumption about one part of the armed forces being superior to the other.

Don't get me wrong, the karmin veterinarian and the wiesengrün panzergrenadier share the same level of importance in Nazi culture that the factory workers and luftschutz anti-aircraft gunners had, at least to me. My selection would be more related to my chances of ever finding a similar one, regarding both maker and waffenfarbe.

For example, if I could find a dozen other caps like the artillerie cap in the first post, and if I couldn't find another example of a panzergrenadier cap, then I would take the latter.

The sad thing is, I talk about this as if I have a choice. What it comes down to is the amount of money I have to spend when a certain bargain pops up. That's the only way I can afford these things. They might as well have made them out of gold.