Waffen-SS NCO? schirmutze

**Dimas** · 10-18-2008, 08:37 PM

The shape of the cap does not me feel better, even if I look at the details

**Espenlaub Militaria** · 10-18-2008 08:37 PM

We also buy and trade your items and full collections!

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 10-18-2008, 08:42 PM

The other give away is the Paspel which is an aspect of how the overall shape of the cap is off.

The craftsman who cut the fabric are not as skilled; the craftsmen or women who especially form the crown of the cap (...what Americans call the "peak...?!") are not as all as skilled to make the thing look like a German cap ca. 1942.

The fakers are not nearly as skilled as the men you see in this picture; nor did they undergo the apprenticeship that these men did to become as skilled in their craft at the moment when the Peek Cloppenburg advertising people took these shots in 1940 or 1941; and there is likely no way in the 21st century that much of anyone could duplicate their exact experience, even if they tried. By the way, these men are using the Schablone to then cut fabric for Feldblusen, but you get my point, I hope.

I am sure there are very skilled craftspeople in central and eastern Europe or elsewhere in Europe, but my point is that they do not have precisely the same skills of these men, whose work has come down to us in a particular way. I mean, I own some wonderful Polish Tschapkas from the recent past, which are vastly superior to ex-Soviet military caps I also have received from my students, too. But they are just not made like German hats ca. 1900-1945. I repeat: this is not to say that anyone is better, it is just to say that the set of skills these men had is unique to a time and place, and such is lost. At the same time, I do admire the energy with which the men and women of new Europe are reverse engineering all these caps. At least it aids the handicrafts somehow.

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 10-18-2008, 08:44 PM

This cap is on Gottlieb's site and I think it is real, even though many here hate this man for their own reasons. The other cap I posted was on the Berg/Jarvis site and found a home with a collector who knows his stuff.

**Dimas** · 10-18-2008, 08:48 PM

by Friedrich-Berthold

This cap is on Gottlieb's site and I think it is real, even though many here hate this man for their own reasons. The other cap I posted was on the Berg/Jarvis site and found a home with a collector who knows his stuff.

Once got a bit of mud will hard to clean after, but IMHO the inside looks great!

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 10-18-2008, 08:49 PM

Colleague d'Alquen has a contract grey cap from the era of the SSVT which is 110% wonderful, but I cannot find the images of it. Maybe he could post them here. His cap[ is very similar to 08/15 army Tellermuetze, but plainly an SS cap with the havana brown cotton interior and a proper sweat band. Maybe he will share it with us.

The other piece is the fakers cannot secure the right gauge of cloth for headwear, especially this Eskimo or Einheitstuch similar to the Feldbluse.

It is always too heavy.

The cap on the Berg/Jarvis site had the SS runics in the Muetzenboden, and did not appear to have been reverse engineered from a real black cap that someone then gutted to make a more rare cap.

Happy headwear.

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 10-18-2008, 08:53 PM

by Dimas

Once got a bit of mud will hard to clean after, but IMHO the inside looks great!

I am glad we agree. I do not mean to endorse people's stuff, but we are all at pains to learn here, and these internet pictures are out there, so I use them for the purposes of education. I also want to help our Moravian friend, who comes from the same town as my late father in law.

Surely our pictures are likely aiding the fakers, but you get my point. In fact, this Gottlieb cap is covered with mucilage, an organic glue of the wartime era and my childhood in the 1950s or so, in fact, which someone used to reattach the sweat band. It looks awful, but the cap is otherwise in fine shape. This kind of sticky glue or scotch tape attempt to repair old regalia is pretty typical of stuff that has been kept and abused by its stewards in decades past.

I have seen a couple of this genre of cap in real life, and never owned one. They are very rare, indeed. They are not much really in terms of how nice certain caps can be, i.e. Stirndrueckfrei with ventilation and all that....

I prefer early black SS officer caps with arcane tags, myself.

Of course, one final note as concerns the artificial aging of such pieces as these is the Paspel itself, that is, its color. The fakers cannot get this right, either, and I shall restrain myself with this comment, too. Perceptive minds will delve further. The endless process of challenge and response is innate in human nature.

Happy collecting and greetings to Europe.

**Dimas** · 10-18-2008, 09:14 PM

by Friedrich-Berthold

I am glad we agree. I do not mean to endorse people's stuff, but we are all at pains to learn here, and these internet pictures are out there, so I use them for the purposes of education. I also want to help our Moravian friend, who comes from the same town as my late father in law.

Surely our pictures are likely aiding the fakers, but you get my point. In fact, this Gottlieb cap is covered with mucilage, an organic glue of the wartime era and my childhood in the 1950s or so, in fact, which someone used to reattach the sweat band. It looks awful, but the cap is otherwise in fine shape. This kind of sticky glue or scotch tape attempt to repair old regalia is pretty typical of stuff that has been kept and abused by its stewards in decades past.

I have seen a couple of this genre of cap in real life, and never owned one. They are very rare, indeed. They are not much really in terms of how nice certain caps can be, i.e. Stirndrueckfrei with ventilation and all that....

I prefer early black SS officer caps with arcane tags, myself.

Of course, one final note as concerns the artificial aging of such pieces as these is the Paspel itself, that is, its color. The fakers cannot get this right, either, and I shall restrain myself with this comment, too. Perceptive minds will delve further. The endless process of challenge and response is innate in human nature.

Happy collecting and greetings to Europe.

Thank you for you interesting answer!

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 10-18-2008, 09:19 PM

by Dimas

Thank you for you interesting answer!

Thank you and please find us more interesting things to look at. I am always grateful that our inquiry is enriched by the people of the Baltic and the Danube...the whole globe...., but especially where all of this history really took place. You have every right to know as much about all of this as is humanly possible. At the risk of enraging my fellow US collectors, the more transparency we all may have of central and eastern Europe in the second world war, the richer we are for it. Sadly, I have not traveled to the Baltics, but I have been many other places in central and eastern Europe and am very fond of it all, really.

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 10-18-2008, 09:26 PM

This is another from Shea, very similar to that on the Gottlieb site.

It too was in nearly unworn condition. This is not the most revealing image, but I did actually look at this cap. I assume these were extra wear thingies of mid war which endured in a locker or Kammer. That is, they are not worn in combat; they are not sweated up; they lack the patina of combat.

Happy collecting...