Muetzenfabrik

[BenVK]

I was not there to test cars, though, mind you.

Probably a wise decision. You might have deemed it a fake based on the rather new smell of the leather seats?!

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Probably a wise decision. You might have deemed it a fake based on the rather new smell of the leather seats?!

I am not nearly as cute as the sniffing figure above, but I can understand the sentiment.
In buying a purse for my wife in Bonn, I did much the same thing as in your illustration.
All the senses are necessary to make one's way in the 21st century, as nothing is at it seems....

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Here is pleasing upholstery, not easily had... from whatever coach builder did the Karosserie of this 540K

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Really? do tell more!

I was once involved with a secret Jaguar project. They drove it down from Coventry to South Wales cloaked in secret bodywork AKA, a black cloth sheet taped to the sides!

It was very funny really because the guy from Jaguar was like this Boris Johnson bafoon character and he really didn't understand anything technical and just said things like "if the budget goes over the agreed limit, I will personaly be very upset!"

Such statements embody the present mentality and its limits visible in the halls of power and the streets of the metropoles here and there.
How sad.

[stonemint]

I had to post this of course.

A bargain! We know that just one hand embroidered kokarde would have cost you about 2 to 3 RM. As they say in America "you do the math"

I hate that expression actualy!

Hardly anyone really takes notice of these facts let alone study the reasons why and how.

Ben--
We gauge prices by the OKK brochures. I have a brochure from Wilhelm Welhausen, and compared to the OKK, WW's prices are stratospheric--makes one wonder why an officer would bother with true private-purchase hats.

I will try to scan a page or 2--you will be shocked!

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Holters charged RM 15 for an SS senior officer's cap that in the Kleiderkasse list cost around RM7 or RM 8. I believe we have dilated on this issue before, which in the Wilkins book is totally hashed up, in fact.
Ben included pay tables elsewhere, which are not the entire piece, because of allowances, to include the clothing allowance for officers.

One of the first caps I owned forty and more years ago was a Wellhausen/Hanover cap for Jaeger which ended up in one of the Schiffer books. It was a wonderful piece, really.

The point of the Kleiderkasse was to manage credit and offer goods without much overhead versus conventional tailors, whose lavish offerings often caused young officers to go into debt. Ergo my own amusement with the fetish for Lubstein caps from the Heereskleiderkasse being celebrated as haute couture in field grey, whereas they were the durable, cheapo version of military fashion.

This is not the first time we have discussed this, but so many collectors cannot get out of their 21st century retail biotope and understand the context of the past.

The Erel cap is akin to the Coke bottle tossed out of the passing aircraft and then made into a fetish object by random island peoples......

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Senior officers also got very generous extra allowances, and the most senior got huge direct subsidies from Hitler himself, to a shocking degree. When I have time, which I do not now, I will find something solid for the interested person to read on this issue.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Stezelberger has the Wilhelm Wellhausen of Hannover catalog for sale, which contains many interesting details of cap making, and the variations one could purchase. These include the addition of the leather peak versus the fiber one for the princely sum of RM 0.40, as well as the high cost of Luftwaffe officer's caps. The firm's craftsmen and craftswomen could also change the piping on a cap from one Waffenfarbe to the other.....consider that. The contrast in prices as well as quality of work is noteworthy. I wish I could find one of the women who could dis assemble a cap to replace the piping, and I wonder how many of these caps we damn falsely. Also, I owned a Wellhausen cap forty years ago which was much more nicely made than any Erel cap, and plainly more expensive, too.


sapere aude.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

I agree with you from my memory of my own Jaeger cap that ended up in one of the Schiffer books. A wonderful cap and much nicer than many of the other products that arouse collector taste in a pack mentality that reigns.
Thanks for posting the clear images from the catalog, which is a useful and revealing source. Collar patches for senior officers were more expensive than caps, however. The Kleiderkassen were cheapo, budget oriented enterprises pure and simple, and hardly a thing of luxury or exclusivity at all.

Granted price and what not, Luftwaffe caps are plainly a more elite proposition than others.

I should also like to see a cap that had its piping redone by the craftsmen or craftswomen at this establishment. However, maybe the handicraft was so expert that none of us can decipher same....maybe.

[KSH]

A wonderful cap and much nicer than many of the other products that arouse collector taste in a pack mentality that reigns.

Wise words F-B - I am shocked to see what kind of pack mentality is displayed at the 'lord of the flies forum' - to take the real history of these objects seriously is their least concern - to invent new compulsive-obsessive North American cap fetishes and adhere to them as were they the very gospel would seem to be their main concern.

I don't know if you saw my cap here: https://www.warrelics.eu/forum/cap-a...sor-cap-77444/ - this Luftwaffe HG cap is a private purchase very nice quality cap that I couldn't be happier with - but since it isn't perfectly typical and ordinary (which is exactly why it intrigues me), on the 'lord of the flies forum' they would prefer all kinds of lesser quality contract caps to my cap because of already mentioned insane behavior. I posted some more aesthetical photos of it in the 'Post your favorite cap' thread recently if anyone is interested.

How can sane people treat such caps as undesirable? Well, at least thus I can get them cheaper - for I care about history - and not collector-invented rubbish.

- Kenneth