ss officers uniform

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 10-28-2009, 08:30 PM

But since no one here has a sense of humor, here is a picture with SS cap badges in it. And I did not pull them off the cap, and I do not give a tinker's damn who made them. Collectors describe this kind of cap as being "salty" which is some contrasted to "minty" I had not thought that salt and mint were antonyms.

**Espenlaub Militaria** · 10-28-2009 08:30 PM

We also buy and trade your items and full collections!

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 10-28-2009, 08:34 PM

and to rub salt into the open wounds of "scull" enthusiasts, here is what the little buggers cost originally, and note that nowhere here does the thing mention the maker, its finish, or any of it.....

wie kann sowas moeglich sein?

**Adrian Stevenson** · 10-28-2009, 08:34 PM

The joke is not lost on me

Cheers, Ade.

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 10-28-2009, 08:38 PM

by Adrian Stevenson

The joke is not lost on me

Cheers, Ade.

Thank you, Adrian, what would I do without you? Thank you for your website. I think that a sense of humor is also an endangered species in the 21st century.

Maybe this person knew someone who knew the magic formula for "scull" making?

You will notice in this picture, that at said time, the refurbishing of old bricks stood higher on the Maslovian pyramid than cap badges do in the year 2009.

Denkt daran!

1945 is regarded as the year zero or the year of the woman, in that the men with the "sculls" were either dead, in Russian captivity, in the slammer, or simply finally revealed to be the catastrophic losers and rabble that a man like Himmler always was, such that the task of reconstruction began with what you see here in this picture. That is, the rescue of the raw materials of civilization from the heaps of rubble. A cap badge, or any of the regalia of the former regime was worth a lot less than a used brick.

While I err on the side of irony here, such is an important point in all of this as concerns the present day fascination with a very narrow and over stylized aspect of the Nazi regime and its material culture.

**Frog** · 10-28-2009, 09:31 PM

To interrupt this, I wish to take a stab at F-B's pictures on #s 42, 43 and 46 of this thread: I believe they are all of the same fellow, General "Beetle" Smith, once Ike's XO.

**Adrian Stevenson** · 10-28-2009, 09:45 PM

Hi Bruce, no they are not of Gen. Walter Bedell Smith.

Run your cursor over FB's pics. The name is there

Cheers, Ade.

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 10-28-2009, 10:18 PM

I cannot tell a lie: Hoyt Vandenberg and Lauris Norstad

The pictures are from Life magazine at the time of the unification of the US services in 1946 through the controversy about air power versus sea power and nuclear weapons until 1949. Vandenberg was CoS of the USAF from 1948 until 1953 or so, and died of prostate cancer in 1954, apropos the cigarettes and the life style of the 1940s. Norstad was SACEUR from 1956 until 1962, and was fired by the Kennedy administration because of his skepticism of US nuclear strategy on the eve of the Cuban missile crisis.

They are wonderful images of an important time, and also have nothing to do with "sculls," which is another reason I like them.

I spend a lot of time with men and women in aviation, or aerospace, I should say, and so these images mean something to me, and I thought I would share them with you.

I award my friend Bruce a marzipan cap "scull" (with imitation Cupal finish of glazed sugar....) for his soldierly attempt to answer my photo quiz.

**prosty zolnierz** · 10-29-2009, 02:48 AM

Dear Tannhauser, I have to have a wry smile with some of the terminology that is bandied about regarding descriptions of artifacts of the past. My Collins Dictionary of the English Language lists " salty ", a. of, like salt; dubious, suspicious, bogus. There again, it does hark back to my younger days of 1954 ! The meaning might have been changed in more modern tomes of vocabulary.

**Paul D** · 10-29-2009, 01:49 PM

You will notice in this picture, that at said time, the refurbishing of old bricks stood higher on the Maslovian pyramid than cap badges do in the year 2009.

Denkt daran!

1945 is regarded as the year zero or the year of the woman, in that the men with the "sculls" were either dead, in Russian captivity, in the slammer, or simply finally revealed to be the catastrophic losers and rabble that a man like Himmler always was, such that the task of reconstruction began with what you see here in this picture. That is, the rescue of the raw materials of civilization from the heaps of rubble. A cap badge, or any of the regalia of the former regime was worth a lot less than a used brick.

While I err on the side of irony here, such is an important point in all of this as concerns the present day fascination with a very narrow and over stylized aspect of the Nazi regime and its material culture.[/QUOTE]

FB i love your comments so very true !!!

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 10-29-2009, 03:22 PM

by prosty zolnierz

Dear Tannhauser, I have to have a wry smile with some of the terminology that is bandied about regarding descriptions of artifacts of the past. My Collins Dictionary of the English Language lists " salty ", a. of, like salt; dubious, suspicious, bogus. There again, it does hark back to my younger days of 1954 ! The meaning might have been changed in more modern tomes of vocabulary.

Thanks. I think salty also means ribald or something close, does it not?

I am also no fan of the words: "crusher" and especially "wrapper," actually. I say: use the original German terms or translate them.
Much of this collector argot is pretty awful.