Talking about Germania items..

[John Brandon]

Yes mate, sorry for not replying.

No problem, I'll just hold off writing the description until it arrives

[svir]

Hello!
Im new in ss side cap.but intrested.
Can anybody tell me the meaning of letters and nr.
printed inside of the caps.
What does it mean ?
Regards.
svir

[OKW]

John i would agree with you regarding the naming of your kit to prevent theft or at least return if lost but there is another factor in the equation. Before the kit is issued who has charge of it? The quarter gyppo thats who. Who likes to hoard items, keep them nice and stored away from those nasty soldiers who will lose items or break them and then want more. Kit is for storing it is not for issuing. Even worse than giving it to your own units troops is the nightmare that some other units quarter gyppo will take possession of your kit by guile or theft without SIGNING for it. The quarter gyppos worse night mare other than an audit. How can this be prevented, stamp everything with your unit stamp, sleep easier at night, pray that your kit deficit can be put down to enemy action.

[John Brandon]

John i would agree with you regarding the naming of your kit to prevent theft or at least return if lost but there is another factor in the equation. Before the kit is issued who has charge of it? The quarter gyppo thats who. Who likes to hoard items, keep them nice and stored away from those nasty soldiers who will lose items or break them and then want more. Kit is for storing it is not for issuing. Even worse than giving it to your own units troops is the nightmare that some other units quarter gyppo will take possession of your kit by guile or theft without SIGNING for it. The quarter gyppos worse night mare other than an audit. How can this be prevented, stamp everything with your unit stamp, sleep easier at night, pray that your kit deficit can be put down to enemy action.

Agree, and also there are a lot of tunics that were unit stamped also, so my argument does not hold much water, however, I'm just putting the for and against argument. I actually like the cap, and i haven't got a problem with the stamp, but as i said to Ben, When it came selling, it would be a B***ch to move on

No need to ask if you lost your 11? I did.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

A unit stamp in an SS cap

One issue here is the following: in the SS VT, a regiment tended to be called a Standarte. Himmler even prohibited the use of military nomenclature in the SSVT, but such a stricture was not always followed. Also, the use of abbreviations was quite common, too, as in SSVT "G" III/2 so as to designate SS Verfuegungstruppe "Germania" III Sturmbann (Btl.) 2 Sturm (coy). At the same time, the use of military conceits and affect in the SSVT contrary to rules is well know.

I assume this is from the 23 Hundertschaft in the III SS TV Standarte ( Elbe and later Thueringen...) Such makes sense because so much material was liberated by US forces at Buchenwald near Weimar. I cannot vouch for the stamps, though.

[BOB COLEMAN]

I have no problem with either the cap or the unit stamp. The "I have never seen it before and therefore it must be fake" arguement has never proved to be a foolproof way to judge originality. It appears that unit stamps were a haphazard affair with the pre-war SS. A few years back, I had the visor cap, tunic, medals and urkunde for the medals of a Heer Gebergsjaeger Hauptmann. Under the sweatband of the cap was a stamping to the staff of the 100 Gebergsjaeger Division, the unit and staff to which this officer was at one time assigned. I had never seen such a stamp in a Heer visor cap. However, I never doubted it's authenticity as the entire grouping was purchased directly from the man's son.
I like everything about this cap and have no doubts as to the originality of the stamp.

[svir]

Ive hawe a side cap that i bought in a off off trasch market in riga.Only for sale, hammers ,plates working tools and so on.
inside it have the stamp VA 43 ..hard to tell..99 44 /40 ss
please help.info.
regards
svir

[BenVK]

The one frustrating thing to come out of the thread on WAF was that the 2 collectors who dismissed the stamp in the sidecap as fake could not offer any conclusive evidence to back up their doubts. They just didn't like it. I thought that prehaps they had seen something about the stamp, the format or typeface etc that didn't ring true and therefore would be a valid reason to doubt it or maybe that they had seen this same style of stamp before in a fake garment but no, that wasn't the case.
From the small amount of research I've done, one thing does puzzle me though. The use of blackletter typefaces for some of these "unit" stamps. It would seem at odds with the purpose of producing a clearly ledgeable identifing mark for a cloth item where the ink will bleed into the material. It's an interesting area but as with most things about the Third Reich, it would probably take a lifetime of study to understand.

[BenVK]

Ive hawe a side cap that i bought in a off off trasch market in riga.Only for sale, hammers ,plates working tools and so on.
inside it have the stamp VA 43 ..hard to tell..99 44 /40 ss
please help.info.
regards
svir

Do you have any photos that you could post here?

[BenVK]

In regards to typefaces, this is quite ridiculous actualy.
Image Gallery: Fraktur - Bormannerlass