Third Reich visor caps from late "survivors"

[vonLind]

I'm wondering how the items from the surviving "key" people of the Third Reich found it´s way to the collectors market?
Paulus, Speer, Dönitz etc.
Anyone have a good story?

[Wagriff]

Most, if not all, Celebrity pieces in collectors hands today are of questionable origin. One German general, I remember, bought a whole car full of brand new uniform hats made well after the war's end and would sell them to anyone silly enough to pay his enormous asking price. He made a handsome income from them. But, his reasoning was..he had briefly owned all of the hats, so he could truthfully say that the people buying them actually owned a hat owned by a famous German General. Otto Skorzeny's famous gold wristwatch from Mussolini for gratitude for his escape is another example. Skorzeny would openly laugh and chortle over how many stupid American(and others) collectors now owned his "Mussolini watch". As far as I've ever heard, he died still owning the original.
For many years, Roger Steele used to advertise for sale "Hitler's Hat", I remember. No doubt it, and many other identical hats now proudly reside in collections all over the World. It seems to me, that most Museum collections that you look at have highly questionable trash in their display cases as well. Even the Big Name museums. That amazing Herman Goring or who's ever uniform all the crowds are looking at likely has about as much connection to Goring as a Maple seed. "It cost a fortune!", you'll hear, and I'm sure that it probably Did..but it still is a fake, regardless. Big time collectors have been sucked into scams and frauds for decades. Names that you would certainly recognize today-names you would be certainly surprised to see. The "Seller who's name is not to be mentioned" is Constantly "discovering amazing celebrity name items", none of which ever seem to turn out to be genuine, but He is never the bad guy for Selling them(or Trying to) for huge auction prices. No, the nasty bad guy who sold Him the items is inevitably the fiend, even though he brags and purports to be one of the World's leading experts on Third Reich memorabilia.
One does wonder, though, just Where did many of the celebrity name stuff go? I suspect that the vast majority of it was deliberately destroyed by their owners immediately at the war's end to either evade detection or even to keep it from the hands of the hated victorious enemy. A few...and by which I mean a Very Few, pieces may have ended up in real museums or advanced collectors possession, but these would be rare indeed and are almost never seen in the light of day today. Remember, the Swastika was totally Banned in post-war Germany and that went for celebrities as well. Many an SS hat went into the fires....hence their absurdly high prices today. It's an Interesting Hobby, for sure..

[stonemint]

A lot of money has gone down the drain for these (and a lot of money will continue to do so into the future):

https://www.warrelics.eu/forum/cap-a...uetzen-271026/

[SteveR]

This is why I am happy to have a collection of common pieces picked up in the 60s and 70s.

[vonLind]

Wagriff, don´t you think that some of the "famous" items is in private collection like Bill Gates, C. Eastwood, russian collection etc?

[stonemint]

The real ones are here:

TR Personality Visors

[vonLind]

Thank´s stonemint!

[Wagriff]

I'll say this, vonLind...millionaires aren't exempt from buying fakes Either...

[BOB COLEMAN]

Steve Wolfe has the Hitler early hat and brownshirt that came from Mohawk Arms. He sold it to Craig Gottlieb but I hear the deal fell through and Wolfe got the set back.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Hasso v. Manteuffel, an otherwise more or less honorable figure, bought extra caps and sold them to others.

As concerns such luminaries of a lost time as Roger Steele, the Freiherr von Moellendorff booklet on fakes and frauds of the III. Reich from the year 1969 contains much of what is above as posted by others.