A couple of totenkopfs probably fakes or?

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 12-03-2009, 09:07 PM

a contrast... notice the silbergespinst Gehirnbremse on said cap.

**Espenlaub Militaria** · 12-03-2009 09:07 PM

We also buy and trade your items and full collections!

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 12-03-2009, 09:08 PM

further....this latter cap is a quite famous one. If you are patient, all these images have appeared hundreds and hundreds of times and thousands of repetitive threads have been written about what is, in fact, not an especially interesting sub field of Nazi regalia.

**carlsson1982** · 12-03-2009, 09:47 PM

There's a wide variation of the first pattern skull in fact

**carlsson1982** · 12-03-2009, 09:52 PM

Husaren skulls also used on early SS/SA caps

**Badto666** · 12-04-2009, 11:27 AM

Thank you carlsson is all the totenkopfs on the picture above yours?
Hope you don´t mind me asking but are you from Sweden? If you are not I thought so because of the double S in your name. I´m swedish myself.
/Mike

**carlsson1982** · 12-04-2009, 12:25 PM

No buddie I had some of these skulls, but these pics are from my database. No Iam not swedish but Flemish.
Iam more intrested in the second pattern skulls and eagles.

**Badto666** · 12-04-2009, 01:22 PM

Ok I see. Yes I also think that the 2nd pattern are much "nicer" but their´s almost impossible to find any "good" ones

So many fakes and I´m just a newbee....
/Mike

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 12-04-2009, 04:30 PM

The above photo of the ensemble of cap badges is from the property of Robin Lumsden, who is much the authority on this regalia. If you seek post 1934 cap insignia, there are a handful of reliable sources, which are quite costly.

**Badto666** · 12-04-2009, 05:52 PM

But the 2nd pattern of the totenkopf seems to be more expensive then the 1st pattern totenkopfs or am I wrong ?
/Mike

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 12-04-2009, 06:43 PM

by Badto666

But the 2nd pattern of the totenkopf seems to be more expensive then the 1st pattern totenkopfs or am I wrong ?
/Mike

You are quite right. The pattern of 1933/4 cap badge is the object of a speculative frenzy similar to real estate and other over valued objects. I am not entirely clear in my mind why this is so, but your own interest is likely the explanation levied against a limited supply of real pieces and a huge supply of fakes.

I collect the insignia with the caps, as you can see from my posts. The emphasis being on the totality of the object versus merely a piece of it.
I am sure many collectors would pry the insignia off the caps and discard the head wear, a crime for which they should be flogged and then some. At the least, they wreck the headwear by prying off the insignia to peer at the dumb numbers, as if such really meant much. As I say, it is akin to being obsessed with button makers or belt hook makers on NSDAP, SA and SS uniforms.

My pissy attitude in this connection derives in part from one or two individuals on the other website with whom I have done business who actually do deface these things, and then, in turn propagate the most outlandish assertions about such items as if they were master craftsmen in Luedenscheid and Pforzheim in the years 19301-1940. In fact, such figures might not even have a high school education, were born in the 1990s an ocean and a river away from said locales, and would not know how to find a pissoir in Luedenscheid or Pforzheim, let alone get to the train station....."Wo ist der Bahnhof, Herr Obertruppfuehrer..." would be a bridge too far for them. And yet they declaim about the methods of manufacture with an authority that is totally bogus. Said personage also tried to sell me fake regalia, which was patently so, and when instructed of same reacted with the emotional maturity of a thirteen old.

I do not mean the people who post here, by the way, so relax.

I am sure the people here will help you to find original insignia at a sane price. And if you find some spares, please tell me.