Feldmutze Alter Art fur Mannschaft

[wolfslair]

Nice pair Ben,
Did the Heer crushers have the same colour interior as their SS counterparts?
Put me on the waiting list if you consider selling
Best,
Wolfslair

[jws54]

Bless you exceedingly! Just to see such things does me good. I appreciate your generosity. I hope for you more of the same such items shall come to you.

Thank you indeed

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Good sir, the positives of your intellectual generosity are legion. I, for one, am grateful and indebted.

Thanks for the kind words, but I am convinced that the cap you encountered is collateral damage of our work. Hence, I have very mixed feelings about the project. There has to be some other way, really, to offer you knowledge without enabling the fakers to wreak havoc. I just do not know what it is.

Thanks, too, to Adrian for a nice site that enables Ben to share his nice cap with us without a heap of nonsense of silliness as obtains elsewhere.

leather peaks ueber alles!

[N.C. Wyeth]

I must admit, I have never been much of a fan of crusher caps, but it seems you found something very nice, Ben - congratulations! After seeing your photos, these caps may actually now find a place somewhere closer to my heart . . . what a great find, and I hope it brings you much joy!

[S.Vestae]

before the congratulation here I would like to see the interior caps lol

[Friedrich-Berthold]

before the congratulation here I would like to see the interior caps lol

The word missing from your request is "please..."

The interior accords nicely with the exterior and strikes me, at least, as all being quite authentic.

I cannot proclaim any expertise in this kind of grey field cap, though the cap I add here is not dissimilar in its craft, though of earlier make. To be sure, it is an earlier cap, but it has a buckram cap band and a leather peak. The cap band is not paste board in the piece I illustrate here. It is still on the Whammond site, though it now lives with its Artgenossen elsewhere.

Ben is not under any mandate to tear apart his authentic cap and divulge all its secrets here. I am happy he showed it to us at all.

Let us also make doubly sure that we do not allow the bad manners of others sites to seep into this one, about which I know we are all in total agreement.

[BenVK]

Mr.Vestae means no harm, he just has a unique way of expressing himself.

FB, I've also been trying to think of a way to show some of these items in detail whilst keeping them away from prying eyes at the same time.

Maybe I could upload to some secure photo hosting website and supply the password via private pm's to those that I trust. I'll look into that possibility.

This grey alter art cap is quite unremarkable from the outside. I can tell you that it's not a buckram cap and the low grade, re-processed wool and overall purely functional construction all seem to fit with the type of clothing manufactured for the Waffen SS. In comparison to the lightweight and finely crafted early or pre war Heer alter art caps that I've owned for example, this one is a world apart. It's like comparing an Fw190 fighter aircraft to a Spitfire. One was designed and built as a robust work horse, the other a thoroughbred race horse.

The celluloid shield is unmarked which may point to it being supplied through a Kleiderkasse outlet but I'm not sure if that can be a definite conclusion. If anywhere amongst the Kleiderkasse catalogues, there is listed a feldmutze alter art fur mannschaft, or other description to that effect, then that conclusion would obviously fit. I don't have access to this information though which is quite frustrating.

For instance, can someone tell me what is the latest dated catalogue anyone has seen? Where they still being produced as late as 45? Indeed, the Kleiderkasse must have just dissolved like the rest of the supply structure, but approximately when exactly?
This cap is of a later date, of that I'm fairly sure.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

The Kleiderkasse catalog of which I am aware is from the end of 1940. I do not know of the fate of said entity in the final years of the war, but my wild a$$ guess is your cap is from an earlier period, in fact, as if it really matters. It only matters that the cap is real, and I think it was specially made by request.

The other site is nearly worthless, but this object ( a bill from Holters for the uniform of an SS potentate) appeared today and is eloquent indeed. It also shows how inexpensive a tailor made cap even for a senior officer really was...it is true that the one from Holters bespoke was double the version from the Kleiderkasse SS, but such was hardly a great sum.

The firm Holters was the premier tailor for the Wilhelmstrasse crowd, and it is interesting that it had branches elsewhere, i.e. Potsdam (with its large garrisons) and Dresden Nord (with its large garrisons), two places of prosperity and elegance in military life, in fact.

This is not the Kleiderkasse, in fact, by any means and really the opposite of same. This was the luxury option that seduced many and got them into serious financial trouble.

Thanks for sharing your treasures, and I appreciate the offer of a closer exam, but I think we all do best to keep some things secret.

Happy hats.

Postscruptum. I have appended the caps for sale at the end of 1940 from the Kleiderkasse SS. You will see that the field cap is the Fliegermuetze.

Thanks to colleague Derek for the extracts from the Kleiderkasse thingy.
He may know of other relevant sources.

[BenVK]

What on earth was an Autokappen?

[Friedrich-Berthold]

What on earth was an Autokappen?

Leather caps for driving in open cars. Not unlike the cap for early aviators. I own two of them and bought them in Wien, as I also own an open car, or drop head coupe, or whatever.