Grey SS caps, in this case authentic

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Grey SS caps. And black ones, for contrast and completeness.

[Little Mermaid]

Beautiful grey caps, thank you for showing them to us.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Beautiful grey caps, thank you for showing them to us.

Thank you. All the best to you in your collecting, dear Kriegsmarine addict.

[Little Mermaid]

That I am, dear F-B

[Friedrich-Berthold]

This thread began several years ago, but one of the caps in it at the lead is now for sale via Shea. I get no kick back from writing this. I have no idea what the real price of these things is in actual conditions, but it might interest someone.

[KSH]

It is amazing to see how many people that are obsessed (my wording here is very intentional) with the SS today - the $14,000 price tag is symptomatic of this...


Regards,

Kenneth S-H.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

It is amazing to see how many people that are obsessed (my wording here is very intentional) with the SS today - the $14,000 price tag is symptomatic of this...


Regards,

Kenneth S-H.

Very astute observation. Of course, I am also obsessed, truth be told. The price thing is for someone else to decipher who better comprehends these things. How much does such an object cost in Norway?

The matter of obsession is an intriguing one, worthy of a more acute and insightful analysis than it usually gets here, that is for sure.

One aspect that always interests me is the recycling of Nazi propaganda in the internet, where it flourishes in a way that was surely not the case before we all became socially networked together. There are precedents in history for all of this, and I am surely NOT a technological determinist. Ideas matter as much, if not more, and the images, symbols and personalities have reached a new generation, as well as new persons of interest who have been cut off from contemporary history because of communism. These new circles in their number have money, while the collectors who snagged this stuff in an earlier epoch are unhinged financially, and on and on. However, I am not concerned with the market aspect, as I am with the collective memory of war, and the resulting desire to collect its physical culture.

Theology also must play a major role in this, too, the role of relics in religion and liturgy, a subject in which I am not expert enough to generalize as I would like.

National socialism was a secular religion, so it is no surprise that relics played a huge role in it at the time and ever since.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Evidence of obsession.

[KSH]

Very astute observation. Of course, I am also obsessed, truth be told. The price thing is for someone else to decipher who better comprehends these things. How much does such an object cost in Norway?

The matter of obsession is an intriguing one, worthy of a more acute and insightful analysis than it usually gets here, that is for sure.

First your cost question: As you probably know Norway has a very high price level and I would estimate very subjectively that the price of the cap in Norway would be around $20,000 perhaps - or more. This country is so expensive that the expensive dealers of Germany (Weitze for example) seem rather cheap for a Norwegian accustomed to the Norwegian market.

I do not equate interest in the SS with obsession, mind you. Speaking for myself the Third Reich had many interesting organizations and the SS is for me just one of them - not worthy of the supreme, colossal pedestal it has been placed upon by people high on infamous fumes. When the SS attracts collectors/people like honey attracts bees (here the honey of course is substituted with notoriety and the bee with the collector) in a hyped up craze, that is for me obsession and not mere interest.


Regards,

Kenneth S-H.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Thanks for the data on prices. Then I shall sell my collection in Norway. As to interest versus obsession, to each his own. Happy collecting. My posts here aim to serve knowledge, and are not commercial propaganda. Such is not my wish. Also, after more or less 47 years of collecting, I finally got an early grey SS cap in nice shape, of which I am somewhat proud. I thought I would put it here, as well.