A-SS EM Visor for Review

[Friedrich-Berthold]

I have been travelling for much of the summer so have had little or no time for the hobby, and thus little or nothing to share I'm afraid. As the cool evenings approach and we stay closer to home I shall try and remedy that.
I must say I still don't care much for that cap but, opinions are like so much else, to each his own.
By the way, how did Beaver's book finally turn out? I haven't seen a copy yet.
D'Alquen

Thanks for the intervention and we, of course, miss your contributions very much. Surely I do not want to be a pill about the Bruce B cap, and I respect your doubts. I owned a very similar cap in the early 1970s, and there are several traits in this cap that fully accord with the earlier piece. Further, I do own now a cap with a similar embossed cello rhombus that is wholly real, and is of the pre-1935 configuration, i.e. with a Melton cloth cover.

The Beaver Shea book has profited a lot from our Canadian colleague's signal contribution. I bought a copy in Berlin and then had it shipped home. There are some remarkable things in the book, and some things I would have analyzed differently. There are also some errors, but all books have errors, surely.

The cap above that is now in the collection of a colleague here was a small surprise, to be sure.

My Berlin interlocutors put to me the proposition of doing my own book, but d'Alquen owes civilization the results of his research.

Happy travel. I have spent far too much time in airports this summer.

[Frog]

My thanks to F-B for his review of this cap.

I have some number of these visors, quite conventional all but this; the piping is faded, the insignia apparently correct (under the lining), and the whole thing seems quite correct in hand.

I attach 360 degree photos as requested.

Starting with 12:00:

[Frog]

Sorry - that was 3:00.

Here is 6:00:

[Frog]

And 9:00:

[Frog]

And 12:00, the forehead cushion as earlier:

[BenVK]

Interesting. I had no problem with the cap until it was pointed out to me that the runic stencil was dubious. I hadn't noticed it before but the design is slightly different to most I have seen. Whether it's something to be concerned about hadn't crossed my mind. My later thoughts that it's definitely an original cap but with prehaps a replaced lining were based on that piece of information combined with the fact the side lining panels reach right up, almost to the sweatband and there's a felt pad. That can sometimes be a sign that someone doesn't want you to see the "guts" of the cap. I'm sure you know what I mean.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Interesting. I had no problem with the cap until it was pointed out to me that the runic stencil was dubious. I hadn't noticed it before but the design is slightly different to most I have seen. Whether it's something to be concerned about hadn't crossed my mind. My later thoughts that it's definitely an original cap but with prehaps a replaced lining were based on that piece of information combined with the fact the side lining panels reach right up, almost to the sweatband and there's a felt pad. That can sometimes be a sign that someone doesn't want you to see the "guts" of the cap. I'm sure you know what I mean.

Please read what I wrote above. This is a Mueller cap of late make, and I am quite confident that whatever concerns some may have about the gold runics, I have one like it which you, Ben, are welcome to examine if you ever see my collection. Also, the "Sonderanfertigung" tag here is spot on, as well. Please look at the image so attached as concerns the colors of such linings.

Without putting too fine a point on it, the other site does a huge amount of damage to otherwise authentic regalia that somehow diverge from the group think shibbolbleths that obtain there.

Also, if you read the Hempe cap making book, you will think twice about the statement as concerns re lining a cap.

To each his own.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

further examples of this color of lining rendered in silk.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

I would also note that the use of paper sweat bands in certain Mueller caps, even those of the Sonderanfertigung type, was quite common in my experience...even this grey Gummipolster have I seen in authentic examples.

Here is an officers cap of similar date and make....to the piece upon which this thread is founded.

This lining is the custard color of rayon in this case, but it was made at a similar date as Bruce B's cap.

Why the enlisted cap retains the runes and this cap below does not is a riddle that I cannot answer.

No one alive today can do so, in fact. That such facts flummox us all is simply a reality of our preoccupation.

I am quite confident that as the scarcity of textiles became a more dominant feature of life, one used what was at hand, regardless of the color. I.e. army caps lined in NSDAP and Navy colored interior linings respectively.....

[Frog]

This discussion on variants of the typical SS EM visor most appreciated.

Compare the shield tag on this cap with that of Stone's visor (# 9 on this thread):