ss stamping on German furnitures

[Hassengier]

Hi, I wondered if anyone can shed some light on the use of the SS letters in rubber stampings. Where they always in the lightning bolt form, I am looking at a chair supposedly taken from the officer training school at Bad Tolz, it has a stamp in ink underneath but the SS is in a Roman typeface.
If you look at the SS rubber stamps on paperwork the SS is not used in the Sieg rune format. This is the round stamp.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Hi, I wondered if anyone can shed some light on the use of the SS letters in rubber stampings. Where they always in the lightning bolt form, I am looking at a chair supposedly taken from the officer training school at Bad Tolz, it has a stamp in ink underneath but the SS is in a Roman typeface.
If you look at the SS rubber stamps on paperwork the SS is not used in the Sieg rune format. This is the round stamp.

Yours is a good question. I am sure the use of the Sigrunen in rubber stamps of SS offices, units, HQs, etc. was regulated by order. That is, the stamps used on paper goods. Property stamps are another matter. The Verwaltungsamt SS required a certain kind of marking for issued items of uniform and equipment. I have enclosed actual examples that conform to this directive. The runes were generally not present. One has to reckon with a certain degree of decentralization and ergo variation in property stamps on furniture of SS bases and facilities. However, I am out of my depth with this whole matter. My focus is on tunics and caps.

Robert Hassler had an Allgemeine SS regulation for the so called Innendienst (i.e. everyday good order and bureaucratic aspects of command) and maybe said document covered stamps. The Reibert manuals for the branches of the service (Infantry, Panzer, &c.) also contained a guide of where to afix stamps and name tags. Such must have existed in SS regulations, but I do not have them at my finger tips.

I am sure others out there know an excellent answer to your worthwhile query.

[Hassengier]

Many thanks for your kind reply. I feel this an area that should be thoroughly investigated, as a guide for genuine collectors. I welcome all replies on this subject very much. The question is simple were all SS rubber stampings in the sigrunen? That is applied to furniture, for the exclusive use of SS personnel?
Its a tricky one. I have another chair in oak with a swastika carved into a roundel. It has no provenance but would be of European oak and at least 60 years old.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

The Germans say: in der Beschraenkung zeigt sich der Meister, which is more or less: a master shows himself in his self limitation. Surely the miracle of the internet will lead us to the expertise our furniture colleague seeks. There must be an SS rubber stamp wizard here somewhere; and there must be a Nazi furniture person too. I would also say this: rubber stamps have been faked for a long time to improve and embellish Nazi regalia. Ergo, one has to be pretty careful. I believe that the Toelz school came into US hands and remained there until the early 1990s. The fate of the Mobelaer is unknown to me. I worked in a ex Wehrmacht Kaserne for several years more than a quarter of a century ago, but there was no remnants of the Wehrmacht there save for the rifle racks in the wall.

Happy collecting.

[Adrian Stevenson]

Welcome to the forum. It is an interesting question and I wish I could help you, sadly I cannot.

Cheers, Ade.

[Hassengier]

Thankyou for your reply. There are 2 fields which interest me a lot. One is Third Reich Furniture, and its VA stampings, the other is Briefcases and Satchels used and authorised by the Reich. The later are very rare.

[SS Ring Man]

I would be careful do not go by stamping alone,how is the item made,what type of wood used,does it conform to the type of furniture made at the time.Remeber anyone can stamp anything on any old pice of furniture,rube a littel grese and drit into it and wow it's real.I grew up in the Antique world,my Dad was an Auctioneers as well as myself.And I have seen all types of fake stuff made by talented folks.I know of one dealer who has a fake Himmler chair he takes to shows.He also owns the real one that he told his insurance man it burnt in a fire.He had someone good a wood work make him a new one.Just one the American oak and Europen oak are two differnt types of oak,he used American.

[Robert H]

I am not the expert in chairs or furniture but for such wooden chairs I expect more a burned stamp marking then a rubber ink marking. Maybe someone else can enlighten us with more furniture details. The Toelz School got also very nice Architecture styles in the whole school, inclusiv in the inverntory too.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

I think Robert is correct. For those interested in Nazi furniture, the volumes of Kunst im III. Reich are of note, as are the Handbooks from the Reichsjugend Fuehrung on the outfitting of HJ Heime. Do look in Zentralverzeichnis antiquarischer Buecher as well as Advanced Book Exchange. The arts and crafts movement of the late 19th century formed a part of Nazi ideology, and the celebration of what were deemed appropriate stye in the decoration of official buildings was a leading feature of the regime and its cultural policy.

There are works on how to run an office and otherwise engage in the quartermaster or adjutant general functions of the SS (forgive me that I use US military phrases...) but such are pretty hard to secure. Mollo refers to them in his vol. VI.

The army officer's handbook Fricks is fairly easy to find, and it might have some hint. It lists everything in an officer's life, but the print is only good for people with Zeiss microscopes for eyes.

Happy regalia.

[Lars]

Hi I have never come across any ss marked furniture's! That said I will not refuse the fact that there might have been some I have just never come across any myself but on the other hand there were also no SS schools etc. in my area!

Also KM, LW and Heer used to mark there furniture's so why not SS

Where I live there has been a lot of activity of LW who had a big airport named fliegerhorst Aalborg and a harbor in Fredrikshavn heavily used by the KM and I have had some furniture's from those installments!

Most of it I have sold or traded away in the past but I have kept a few stools (the ones I have had have all been unmarked but I have seen a few marker marked in the past) and also kept a LW table!

I have encountered furniture's marked and as said unmarked!

The KM furniture I had where marked with KM eagle, marker mark and it was burned into the wood.

I have also had a few LW closets and they were marked with ink stamps like my LW table.

I have no doubt in my mind that both techniques where used as I have encountered both and all where picked up locally from non collectors (mainly old folks)

Cheers
Lars








And a poster maybe he is working on a stool for the LW