Early pre RZM SS EM visor from Bob Coleman collection

[Greg Domian]

I would like to post photos of my new acquistion from the Bob Coleman collection. I am very happy to say that Bob was gracious enought to part with one of his early Pre RZM SS EM visors I had been lusting for for quite some time. Ever since i picked up my Nurnburg Allgemeine tunic I have been looking for a cap that would perfectly compliment it's charm. The cap is circa 32-34 with black lining and ersatze sweatband. there are no markings or labels present.

Hope you enjoy looking at it as much as I will now own this wonderful piece.


Greg

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Thanks for sharing this piece which already has graced our pages some years ago. In fact, your nice cap should rightfully be called a "non RZM" cap versus a "pre RZM" cap. The RZM existed when this cap was made, but it was not marked as were the caps that emerged ca. 1934.
Very nice piece and a nice adjunct to your tunic of earlier style. You need a brown shirt, too, of course. Congratulations.

The combination of the leather peak and the ersatz sweat band is by no means an exception, either.

[mgalat]

Simply wonderful ... May the day come that I own such an ensemble..congratulations!

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Greg, it compliments the tunic very well. Congratulations on obtaining it from Bob. Superb!

Cheers, Ade.

[Killroy]

Hope to one day have just a piece of a uniform that nice!

[Friedrich-Berthold]

This thread more than fulfills the ideal to be attained on this site. Thanks for the nice contributions.

[BenVK]

I don't mean to be argumentative (well, actualy I do! ) but the definition of ersatz is "imitation or a substitute, usually an inferior one; artificial"

I'm not at all convinced these laminated sweatbands can be labelled as an inferior substitute product. German milliners were using this product from at least the pre great war era right through to the end of WWII. That covers a lot of ground and ups and downs in terms of leather supply and prices. Also, some extramutzen have them whilst during the same period, issued caps have leather so it cannot be judged as a cost cutting or needing a leather substitute because leather is hard to get measure.

Prehaps we now look at this the wrong way based on our current product knowledge? It's easy to say that this material is "ersatz" in the surroundings of our high tec world.

I'm more inclined to think that rather than a poor leather substitute, this was an early attempt to create a new "composite" material, the like of which we are very familiar these days with carbon fibres and the like. Germany was well advanced with such thinking it has to be agreed. Prehaps the idea was to create a composite material that was stronger than leather, did not suck up the wearers head sweat and deteriorate, used "by-product" materials and therefore would be very cost effective and easy to manufacture?

I don't think they were too successful but then again, what did they feel and look like brand new? Today they are mostly all cracked, creased and most unattractive, much like myself and FB!

[Friedrich-Berthold]

I am very attractive, despite my age, Ben, and the term "ersatz" in German usage does not mean inferior, it merely means the results of German chemistry and industry. The RZM specifications allow both leather and imitation leather, if you read them carefully. It is of no account, but I am always interested that many collectors associate the non leather or what I call without a value judgment "ersatz" sweat band is present in this cap as somehow "late" whatever this term means, which is actually nothing. As you know, such ersatz objects are also present in caps of much earlier in the 20th century.

They were the high tech of their age, so I well accept your point.

But ersetzen in German remains to replace, as in Ersatzheer, Ersatzteil, and in this sense, such Ersatzstoffe came into use in Germany in 1914-1918 in the face of the British blockade and its privations....but such items were used, I am sure, before 1914, as well. As concerns food stuffs as in chicory coffee and bread filled with wood ca. 1918 then Ersatz had a negative meaning, but I did not mean such here.

Happy hats, and I am sure your girl friend thinks your attractive. I am also much older than you, of course.

[BenVK]

I did not know that "ersatz" was mentioned in the RZM specifications, thank you sir. Another little golden nugget of information along with the fact that you are still very attractive!

[Friedrich-Berthold]

I did not know that "ersatz" was mentioned in the RZM specifications, thank you sir. Another little golden nugget of information along with the fact that you are still very attractive!

Du bist mir auch sehr lieb, mein Schatz! I will look up the page number in the reprint, but I think it is mentioned a couple of times, not for SS caps, mind you, but for NSDAP, SA and some others, if I recall. I appreciate your raising these points, as you do. We learn all in the process.
The good thing about Germany is that you can be much older and still make the pleasant company of younger women, who think grey hair is a sign of maturity and experience. My ideal is the advanced middle age man in the Mercedes Benz 280SL commerciall in You Tube with the nice woman with big hair ca. 1966. He wears a tweed jacket and seems to know how to make the top go down on his expensive car to the admiring gaze of the much younger woman. In my native country, if you are not an extreme sports, college varsity, software billionaire boy wonder with tussled locks, a villa in Tuscany, and the keys to the Bugatti Veyron all before your 22nd birth day, you are simply male trash.

There is no "ersatz" for youth and good looks in the 21st century and now amount of forehead free pressure will correct it, especially in the post-pre RZM era.