The Heiber volume on Heini H and elsewhere includes the point that the Waffen SS persons also demanded the change from military style badges to police style badges worn by SD men, as did, I think, regular soldiers because of the murderous reputation of such SD persons.
Behold! The "sculls!"
The more I examine all insignia of all kinds with a lupe, the more differences and little odd or startling things emerge, i.e. green canals on Mars, as it were. Thus I am pretty dubious of the purported variations, which, as Ben suggests, are just flukes or the normal variations of mass produced objects from the early or mid 20th century. These are stylized into some huge rarity also in the effort to hoist the discoverer into celebrity status.
Last edited by Friedrich-Berthold; 08-19-2013 at 04:58 AM.
and, when I look at these things with the naked eye, I hardly see such little, startling grooves, sutures, pockets, blemishes, thingies and what not....
The badge is either real or fake, and it either has been on the cap, or has been replaced, and either is of the epoch in the III. Reich or maybe not....
Mr. Derek's document on the introduction of the cap badges is a real point of data versus what otherwise is often just balderdash.
Ben's observation about the variations in the nose piece is also germane as likely just being how the little buggers were stamped out.
The place where these were made was still going in recent memory, and someone might have asked the people there a few questions, but such knowledge never seems to intrude here.
I went to Breiter in Munich and asked them about how caps were made, only to be told that those who made them in Munich had long ago turned to dust and their knowledge has vanished.
An example: the 1927 or 1929 Hoheitszeichen is an object of which I have perhaps a dozen or more on caps, and not one of them is identical to the other: they are all somehow different.
These variances in details tend to drive the collector to madness. I was reviewing an old thread that centered on the variations of Litzen and what is considered as correct and what is not. Opinions were given, then changed, and then changed once again. It is indeed riddles in enigmas.
The above photo was provided by Greg D.
CMH
Thank you. The riddles in enigmas morph into maddness on the part of those who are trapped in the present, who work in some idiot cubicle on standardized software or hardware or something standardized and rationalized into oblivion, and who buy in big box stores their overpriced globalized junk sold on all the continents. The mental and spiritual slavery that this system imposes on us makes us into fundamentalists, who respond to any ambiguity and subtlety and contradictions with rage and the impulse to crush the offending thing as in the Lords of the Flies and the pig. Or, as in the case of the "scull" savants, into obscurantists and snake oil salesmen who clamber atop their wobbly pedestals wafted upward with tall tales told to them by the Deschler shop foreman (who met his silver smith in the sky ca. 1959) speaking in tongues. Pfui.
Ben has given me the RZM circulars and Mr. Derek has enabled me to read the SS orders, all of which make clear that the attempt at standardization (the unhistorical presumptions about which form a crutch for lazy collectors) went to pieces on the indifference, resistance and or Eigensinn of those to be standardized. The evidence of this actual process in the past is legion, but it is not in the Schiffer books, and it defies the label of "textbook," or such also eludes the received wisdom of some unobservant persons who like to refer to one another in their vain attempt to generalize about this regalia.
Ben is very observant, made more so by his skill as a craftsman.
Nor do I wish to divulge how many publications I have written since certain of these savants announced years ago their manuscripts on Nazi regalia, but it is a number larger than zero.
Last edited by Friedrich-Berthold; 08-19-2013 at 02:41 AM.
Collectors also want a certainty in the face of the pressure from all the fakes. This wish is normal, but the path to success lies in knowledge that goes beyond the passive consumption of the colored pictures in the Schiffer books, or the passive, docile exertion of point and click of web searches that last for, at most, fifteen minutes.
Attachment 556231
The question here, for instance, concerns field grey. The interesting aspect of this color and its textiles arises from its origins at the close of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th century; in fact, that the persons who fashioned this important item of the German soldier had great difficulty getting a standardized product---the exact same color on a sustainable basis. To which I would add that I own several field grey caps, none of which really matches the other.
Last edited by Friedrich-Berthold; 08-19-2013 at 04:54 AM.
The "m34" could almost be said to be the SS equivalent to the heer's Waffenrock as far as I can tell (Though M34 was also worn as a daily/walking out uniform as well)by Friedrich-Berthold
The SS had no direct equivalent to the Waffenrock.
When it comes to the full-time, armed elements of the SS (SSVT/SSTV/W-SS/SD) specifically, the black service uniform (which I will not call "M 32") could be considered their equivalent to the Waffenrock insofar as it was their sole permitted parade- and walking-out uniform and was discontinued right after the start of the war (for them; others continued to wear it, of course).
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