Paul Kaps SS General's Schirmmeutze - potentially!

[BenVK]

The nincompoop site has yet again dished up another hugely frustrating situation in regards to a potentially very rare original object.

It's this Paul Kaps SS General's service cap. The badges are of course fakes but many an original hat ended up with these mickey mouse trinkets.

I have failed miserably in my attempt to get the owner to help himself in regards to authenticating this hat and others in his seemingly endless collection so we will just have to make do with these images.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

The Paul Kaps Jaeger cap I once owned had the same interior, to include the black visor underside piece. But I have no idea based on this, you people have more insight into Paul Kaps head wear than I. I should not have sold the one I had, really. I seem to sell all the Jaeger caps, include Gebirgsjaeger caps, to boot. Many real SS caps were denazified and do indeed end up with junky badges.

[BenVK]

Dear friend, as you know, I have a particular fondness for this maker and wish I had been around when you sold the Jaeger cap!

When looking at hats made by Kaps after all these years, there is usualy a distinctive flaring of the centre band towards the bottom. This is due to a rather unique feature which is a metal spring that is directly sewn onto the pasteboard around the front half of the hat. I fully expect to see this feature in the cap above.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Donnerwetter. I have no idea that the cap I owned had a metal spring beyond the ones in the cap cover. What refined and subtle research you do. I guess the additional spring keeps the shape further.
In any case, the Kaps cap did I de accession early in the last decade, along with the Lubstein mountain troop cap, and the Welhausen cap I traded off before you were even born, I think.
I hope the cap in Italy is real. It looks ok from the inside aspect.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

There is also this cap known to you and me, of course.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

and one of the high rollers who skulks around on the other site has a Kap Pz cap with SS insignia, I think, am I mistaken? All fractured and broken bits of the past that intrude into a present laden with paranoia, conspiracy theories, and much bad behavior by people who fully know better.

[BenVK]

Notice the exact same flaring around the centre band.

The General's cap does have a different crown profile altogether and something I had to look twice at but it's still well within the realms of period cap design.

[BenVK]

and one of the high rollers who skulks around on the other site has a Kap Pz cap with SS insignia, I think, am I mistaken?

Indeed he does FB. I have photos of it somewhere...

[BenVK]

Here is the metal spring I was reffering to.

I've omitted a few important details about this feature as to not give it all away to the fakers.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Oh, yes, I recall your dissection of same. All too droll. Please do not tell the fakers everything, since they trawl here enough as it is.