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Grey SS Cap for SS Gentleman in Asia

Article about: Another observation. Black caps of the pre-war years always seemed to have been issued with Deschler TK's and most often of the cupal variety. Rarely do you see them with any other maker of

  1. #31
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    Default Re: Grey SS Cap for SS Gentleman in Asia

    Another observation. Black caps of the pre-war years always seemed to have been issued with Deschler TK's and most often of the cupal variety. Rarely do you see them with any other maker of TK. That's obviously assuming that they are the original badges and haven't been switched by a collector post war which is all too common. Actually, the only cap I've ever owned that I was confident that the TK hadn't been touched for a long, long time was a Clemens Wagner black NCO example. I had to take the TK off because the cap was in a terrible state and needed some heavy restoration. The TK was almost welded to the cap but when it finally came off, underneath was a very crispy, mummified spider. Prehaps I should have kept it and sold it as an original member of the Schutzstaffel !!
    Anyway, back to the cap above, the fact that it has a Zimmerman TK (again, assuming it's original to the cap) would date it at the earliest to late 1940/41 as Zimmerman's are marked RZM 499/41 (41 being the year). As I understand it, RZM contracts were awarded 6 months in advance so 1940 is still possible.

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  3. #32

    Default Re: Grey SS Cap for SS Gentleman in Asia

    Thanks for your wise intervention. The other black enlisted extra SS cap I have seen and examined of the Weissbach make ca. 1940/1 also had a Zimmermann badge identical to the piece in the image above.

    The Weissbach black enlisted caps I have seen in the Extra model have woolen cap covers of superior wool vs. the everyday wear one; the serial numbers of the RZM tags jive with the date of manufacture; they are very well made caps. The sole aspect is they have a grey rayon interior vs. a custard or rust colored one.

    I think I have seen one Overhoff cupal Totenkopf badge on a black cap, otherwise the majority are Deschler, surely.

    But with the progress of the war--and with the assumption that the badges are organic to the headwear, one sees more Overhoff and Zimmermann badges on caps...however impressionistic such a statement must be.

    I have seen several Wille/Hannover black enlisted caps without the stamp on the visor and with a marking to the sweat band from 1940.

    The Allgemeine SS remained a part of the Gesamt-SS throughout the war and it actively recruited from Waffen SS veterans and others late into the war. Further, for part time members of the Allgemeine SS, to the degree that they were not in the armed services, the black uniform remained at hand, often in wear in limited circumstances, but there nonetheless.

    The statement that the black uniform was abolished in 1942 is an urban legend of no value.

    I believe that people in full time billets in the Allgemeine SS wore a grey uniform, while the majority were in part time billets, and got no new uniform at all.

    As regards the phrase "textbook," I am no friend of this concept, especially as used by some on these sites, because it imparts a certainty that is not borne out by all the evidence of the past.

    In this I diverge from others, surely, but such is life.

    One also seens maroon or brown sweatbands often on black SS officer caps as in the attached image here.

    We are all in search of some magic, simple formula to eradicate uncertainty, confusion and doubt.
    Click to enlarge the picture Click to enlarge the picture Grey SS Cap for SS Gentleman in Asia  
    Last edited by Friedrich-Berthold; 10-28-2008 at 10:11 PM.

  4. #33
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    Default Re: Grey SS Cap for SS Gentleman in Asia

    Quote by Friedrich-Berthold View Post
    As regards the phrase "textbook," I am no friend of this concept, especially as used by some on these sites, because it imparts a certainty that is not borne out by all the evidence of the past.
    I think that's one of the most economicaly worded but yet so accurate verdicts of this over used, collector invented terms that I've ever read.

  5. #34

    Default Re: Grey SS Cap for SS Gentleman in Asia

    Quote by BenVK View Post
    I think that's one of the most economicaly worded but yet so accurate verdicts of this over used, collector invented terms that I've ever read.
    Dear Colleague, thanks for the kind words. If you spend much time with actual German tailoring books of the period, then you will see the oddity of the idea of "textbook." I have indeed seen the Herstellungsvorschriften of the RZM which used to be posted online, where many relevant and compelling details were described. But these were in somewhat general terms known to craftsmen (...and women...) who could then interpret them according to their own particular approach in some cases.

    I do not have a scanner, and I cannot thus post what I am talking about.

    People here want a check list, a rosetta stone or magical aid to the confused and befuddled.

    Someone should take out an ad in German newspapers for people trained in these handicrafts of the era, of whom some must still be alive, and then ask them.

    I am also sure in the UK such is also more likely, since there was a cross fertilization of the fashion and apparel industries between Germany and UK even in the 1930s, all Nazis aside.

    And you, yourself, are enough of a craftsman from your excellent work to see my point.

    At all events, look at the list of RZM licenses to the industrial and crafts facets of the apparel and clothing industry of the era to get an idea of the heterogeneous nature of things.

    And, of course, the system worked via reverse engineering, in that the Zeugaemter issued the Proben (here attached...) which were then copied by the respective contractors.

    Here is a Mueller Sonderanfertigung Probe piece.

    It is the textbook, as it were, but the caps from the other makers diverged in little details....
    Click to enlarge the picture Click to enlarge the picture Grey SS Cap for SS Gentleman in Asia   Grey SS Cap for SS Gentleman in Asia  

    Grey SS Cap for SS Gentleman in Asia   Grey SS Cap for SS Gentleman in Asia  

    Grey SS Cap for SS Gentleman in Asia  
    Last edited by Friedrich-Berthold; 10-28-2008 at 09:59 PM.

  6. #35

    Default Re: Grey SS Cap for SS Gentleman in Asia

    The Weissbach cap symbolizes an interpretation of this piece above, made in 1937/8 the fate of which is unclear. The thing is still for sale, by the way. Mueller was a major contractor of this regalia.

  7. #36

    Default Re: Grey SS Cap for SS Gentleman in Asia

    Hey Ben,
    you are everywhere !

  8. #37
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    Default Re: Grey SS Cap for SS Gentleman in Asia

    That's true Seb, too cold here now to go out much!

  9. #38
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    Default Re: Grey SS Cap for SS Gentleman in Asia

    Quote by Friedrich-Berthold View Post
    And you, yourself, are enough of a craftsman from your excellent work to see my point.
    Many thanks for the compliment, much appreciated. Actualy, I've just finished another cap, a grey NCO visor for a guy in Delaware. If he's willing, I'll post some photos soon. You certainly get a different perspective of how these things were put together when digging around inside them.

    As you say Friedrich, although the main components of a cap are put together in pretty much the same way, the variety of different styles shown in the hand finishing is facinating. After a while, you begin to identify particular traits that could only have come from the same pair of hands.

    That Mueller cap is remarkable. Well, not so much the cap itself but the tags attached to it. Reminds me of certain products in this day and age like designer jeans for instance. Some of the tags they put on them are 10 times more interesting than the product itself. What's certain is that someone back then had a very interesting eye for detail. I wonder what became of them.

  10. #39

    Default Re: Grey SS Cap for SS Gentleman in Asia

    Quote by BenVK View Post
    Many thanks for the compliment, much appreciated. Actualy, I've just finished another cap, a grey NCO visor for a guy in Delaware. If he's willing, I'll post some photos soon. You certainly get a different perspective of how these things were put together when digging around inside them.

    As you say Friedrich, although the main components of a cap are put together in pretty much the same way, the variety of different styles shown in the hand finishing is facinating. After a while, you begin to identify particular traits that could only have come from the same pair of hands.

    That Mueller cap is remarkable. Well, not so much the cap itself but the tags attached to it. Reminds me of certain products in this day and age like designer jeans for instance. Some of the tags they put on them are 10 times more interesting than the product itself. What's certain is that someone back then had a very interesting eye for detail. I wonder what became of them.
    There are so many things to know about all of this to satisfy our curiosity and so much of the evidence is incomplete. But surely many of the caps we see were made by fewer hands than we think. Since you live in Europe, you know that the tradition of the handicrafts has been central to one's place in society, be it automobiles in the industrial age; or the traditional trades of the guilds in the pre-modern age. With these silly caps we see both. What we do not see in them is only our present telescoped back into the past with Fordism, standardization, homogenization, and a dull sameness that afflicts our life in the 21st century which there are McDonald's french fries in Birmingham in the UK and in Boston in the US and in Taipei on Taiwan all being offered in much the same way. This process was beginning in the era 1920-1950, but it had yet to be completed; that is, the handicrafts approach still operated in certain instances, and surely more than certain self styled cap "authorities" of late birth would allow. In fact, since Ben VK lives in the UK, look at how the Morgan sports car is still made in 2008contrast to a GM/Opel roadster of today, the name of which escapes me. This is my point.

    But I am sure this point is too arcane and odd by half. But the point being that the Proben, of which I have posted an example, were a chief means to perpetuate the regulations in a 3 dimensional way.

    Many in North America have lost any connection with what the world of the guilds and estates meant in real, tangible terms, as well as the realm of the handicrafts that were a central part of same. Also, if one's interest in this topic without any actual contact to Europe over time, then one faces a kind of intellectual hurdle that is pretty high, indeed.

    Happy headwear.

    Postscriptum: I attach another Probe for insignia found at the SS Wirtschaftslager in Dachau, the site for the administration of the SS clothing economy with the Verwaltungsamt SS/Wirtschafts und Verwaltungshauptamt. Notice the piece is dated from 1939 and has its article number from the price list of the VASS.
    Click to enlarge the picture Click to enlarge the picture Grey SS Cap for SS Gentleman in Asia  
    Last edited by Friedrich-Berthold; 11-02-2008 at 05:27 AM.

  11. #40
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    Default Re: Grey SS Cap for SS Gentleman in Asia

    you are so right.



    Quote by BenVK View Post
    I think that's one of the most economicaly worded but yet so accurate verdicts of this over used, collector invented terms that I've ever read.

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