First Heer Schirmütze

[ObKrieger]

Is it just me, or has this thread gone from the sublime to the ridiculous? No disrespect intended to all the worthy contributors.

Those are quite often the same thing, Jerry. We have hit three major topics in this thread:

1. Craig got a fantastic new visor cap.
2. FB is very good with his words.
3. Ben doesn't like garden gnomes.

Some of you have also given Patrick very good advice about starting a cap collection. I would say that this thread has been successful.

[M18922]

It has indeed gone a bit off topic but it has stayed on the topic of caps (if you dont include the gnomes).
All is fair in love and war.

cheers,
Patrick

[KSH]

Is it just me, or has this thread gone from the sublime to the ridiculous? No disrespect intended to all the worthy contributors.

Well, Jerry, no disrespect intended - I find these threads that we create from time to time in the Cloth Headgear forum (like this particular one) to be of transcendent merit and to be honest a fresh breath on this forum all too often bogged down by threads like this:

Start of thread example
Member1: "here is my new item" (ready to be praised on autopilot of course).
Member2: Nice item, congrats!
Member3: "well done"!
Member4: "Very nice"!
Member1: "thank you guys" (now member1 has filled his emotionally necessary "praise-quota" for this time at least).
End of thread

If the above thread example is not ridiculous, then what is? We have all done it (me included) many times and surely will do it again. But what makes it worth it in the end for me is the kind of thread that I am now writing these words within.

Hochachtungsvoll,

Kenneth S-H.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

For those of you familiar with German military thought and practice, you will recall the phrase from Truppenfuehrung as written by Ludwig Beck that is taken from Clausewitz and also from Moltke. I am sure my colleague in Norway can find it for us, since it is among the first pages of the service regulation of 1933. Perhaps it should be placed here to describe how I see what I do and what others seek and find here.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

When I reflect on it, my first caps were all fakes, actually. I surely do not have pictures of them and they are long, long gone, but they were all quite fake.
Surely this experience compelled me to learn more. I bought said fakes when I was a little older than our friend in Ireland. There were unscrupulous people who took advantage of me, but I outgrew it. I did not have the internet as a tool at the time, of course, but the desire to learn and the process of trial and error, which operates today as well. However, I shifted the correlation of forces in my favor by will, in the first instance, taking a page from the subject itself, as well as intelligence, knowledge, and experience. The latter takes time, but intelligence and knowledge are at everyone's beck and call, if they wish.
In this aspect arises the feature here that irritates my friend in Norway and myself, as quite often many collectors are not very smart, and they show it plainly in their posts.

The most irritating thing in these spaces is the parade of fake cap badges, which is far more killing of the human spirit than Gartenzwerge, which, themselves, are a form of satire, actually, as well as commentary on the human condition.

The reverse of a fake cap badge is usually a proclamation of human failure and misguided lust.

What is far worse, of course, are the half witted, uninformed, and unhistorical generalizations by persons about these fake badges, who, if given a test in German history and geography, would fail all the questions. Also, if we put them in the Frankfurt airport or the Munich train station, they would be so confused and terrified they would hide in the crapper.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Scenes of the Hauptbahnhof in Muenchen, which I love very much.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Nor would many persons who irritate me at least be able to make it from the central rail depot to find where these two objects were made.

[M18922]

I am sure this thread has answerd alot of questions and has been to good use. and I am sorry if I have chnaged the subject while everyone should be focusing on Craigs Cap.



cheers,
Patrick

[Friedrich-Berthold]

The cap that began this thread is a well used cavalry army Tellermuetze, the 08/15 kind of cap that a soldier got from the Kleiderkammer for his best order of dress and which he likely ditched in order to buy a nicer cap of higher quality.
When I began collecting, no one would have touched a cap in this condition, since such caps could be had in perfect condition and for a modest price.
There is nothing especially remarkable about said cap, actually, and it is real and of the era, and thus desirable.
For a person starting out, it may be the right thing; for a cavalry collector, it may also be the right thing. I amended this cap because I would like to buy it, and it is most costly, but I won't buy it, because I no longer collect army caps.
Each person reacts to an object based on various factors, and these come into play in these threads which are high subjective, and that is perfectly alright in most cases.
There is no way on the level of philosophy to eradicate subjectivity is there?
Nor would we really want to do so, granted that a creative person can contribute here in their own way.
The standardizers and 21st century management types want to enslave us all in their Orwellian and Taylorite worlds, but I will have none of it, and I use all the tools and wizardry of these images to resist same.

[ObKrieger]

FB, how did you study caps back then? Surely it would have been hard to discern a real cap from a fake one without the kinds of references that we have today. Did you make some sort of personal reference?

"The reverse of a fake cap badge is usually a proclamation of human failure and misguided lust."

I would love to make that my signature.