New Poster - Looking To Buy An Authentic SS Uniform

[Friedrich-Berthold]

My first black tunic cost me the equivalent of USD 275 nearly forty years ago, and such was a fortune for a young person. I still own it, but had to buy it back at a higher price a decade ago from a noted author publisher hereabouts. I bought another soon thereafter for USD 400 which was an untold sum.

These things are more common in the pictorial record than in reality then and especially now.

Demand is greater than the supply, plainly.

Of course, forty years ago, money bought more than it does today.

[Frog]

By comparison, my first or second black tunic, bought not that long ago, cost me more than I made in an ENTIRE year forty years ago!

I paid far more for them than my first car, and far more than my ex-wife's fur coat (don't have either of them, or her).

The far-sighted collector of many things, and certainly these woolens, should indeed feel thankful today.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

I certainly hope so. I have over positioned myself in old woolens, that's for certain.

But I think they weathered the collapse recently better than some of the financial shares as well as absurdly priced real estate in benighted locales.

But all of this only reminds us of how brutal and venal the present has become, which is in bad taste at this time of year, nicht wahr?


My own motivation has never been as an investment, but as a means to draw closer to events that remain powerful, even dominant in our lives and which demand interpretation and context.

These remnants of the past contain riddles and enigmas, which remain as powerful today as when I first saw authentic regalia when I was nine years old.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

I have no idea what these things will be worth in a decade, though.

The placement of a price tag on all things great and small is a pretty enervating and frustrating process, really.

I do not think it will all end well, really.

My only hopes is that once my stewardship of such objects ends, that they will go to a proper place and be preserved in good hands. The opposite is often likely, with a lot of material being badly treated, mangled, ripped apart and abused at a great cost to the understanding of the past.

You, dear Bruce, are welcome to it all.

[Frog]

Indeed.

These black uniforms, whatever their value, seem to have virtually disappeared from the commercial market. It was not that long ago when they stood, looking for a buyer, for some weeks or even months on the major sites. Visors seem to have risen in value as well, but there are always plenty of them around to choose from.

I would think an intact, organic tunic of the A-SS would be worth $10-12K today, and that of the VT, TV or SD in the $12-15K range if not more.

I can remember seeing some wonderful displays of these things on now-deceased forums; right or wrong, they seem to be underground in tight hands today.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Indeed.

These black uniforms, whatever their value, seem to have virtually disappeared from the commercial market. It was not that long ago when they stood, looking for a buyer, for some weeks or even months on the major sites. Visors seem to have risen in value as well, but there are always plenty of them around to choose from.

I would think an intact, organic tunic of the A-SS would be worth $10-12K today, and that of the VT, TV or SD in the $12-15K range if not more.

I can remember seeing some wonderful displays of these things on now-deceased forums; right or wrong, they seem to be underground in tight hands today.

I am not expert on prices, and because I have a stake in these things, I cannot be disinterested. What I would write would be too partisan. I think more of this material is underground than we think, but less of it comes to the fora for whatever reason.

The shock of the economic crisis is pretty grave, surely.

Or the high rollers have short circuited some of the wires upon which you and I have relied, and we are left out in the cold and the dark.

Such is also quite possible granted the personages involved.

Who knows?

[Friedrich-Berthold]

further image as concerns alu embroidery and the appearance of black Trikot....in this case ca. 70 years of age. Said image was from the brief moment when my camera worked and my fading eyesight allowed me to focus. The camera is busted and my jittery hand (the toll of various bacterial ravages of the brain...) make it impossible now to search for said details.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Another. This Saarbruecken piece has a superior quality of Trikot versus the Koeln/Bonn one.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Or another from Hagen. Plus Ehrenwinkel with Unterlage. Maybe it has a nice tag under it?

This is a tailor made uniform of Trikot with the signal appearance of time versus the pristine type of textile in the new fakes from certain dealers.

Also, these textiles were originally a wool blend, and the non woolen Bestandteile are, I think, no longer at hand for the fakers.

Ther Herstellungsvorschriften describe these textiles pretty closely.

The combination of Fingerspitzengefuehl and knowledge of the sources and regulations is essential to escalation dominance in the challenge and response amid the search for foetid woolens.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Some more details. Buttons on many SS uniforms are of the SA/SS style, with so called Wildmatt pebbling in contrast to the style found on military buttons of the time. This feature changed at the end of the 1930s. Such buttons were also nickle plated. Notice the appearance of the button holes as well as the patina of time on same.

Happy picayune details. How can any sane person care about all of this?