SS Officers Tunic

[Friedrich-Berthold]

I have never seen any such label that I believe is made before May 8, 1945.

Bob Hritz

Dear Colleague, nor have I, in fact. Thanks for your kind attention, FB

[Friedrich-Berthold]

See attached as a point of information....

No where in this document is mention made of such finished items as tunics and breeches. The sole exception is certain over coats, i.e. rain and leather coats.
That is, the Kleiderkasse furnished textiles (Uniformstoffe und Uniformtuche) for the tailoring of such items.
The VA SS lists include ready made tunics, breeches, etc. which were presumably also for sale by some mechanism, but these VA price lists were chiefly for internal procurement within the SS.

Please kindly correct any mis impression on my part.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Here is an SS VA addition to the existing price list with mention of ready to wear garments, presumably issued to those entitled to such items without a clothing allowance or which could be bought as the cheapo alternative to a private tailor or a tailor paid by the SS Kleiderkasse.

I will say this, though, that the sources here are either from before the war or its first years, and Mollo makes clear as do other secondary sources that this system changed as the Waffen SS grew and the dynamics of the textile situation grew more acute. But my generalizations here are based on the evidence at hand as concerns the mythical Kleiderkasse SS. I do not own the army and air force Kleiderkasse price lists, so I cannot generalize about them.

[SS gentleman]

Friedrich-Berthold... Great information!

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Friedrich-Berthold... Great information!

Thanks. What I append here is far from complete, and surely others have more valuable and insightful things to say.
Also, I do not know why I give to tutorials to fakers as to how they can improve their wares?
I would also describe the above as knowledge versus information. We have too little of the former and far too much of the latter, which its makers over value with its plenty.

sapere aude.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

The more you deepen yourself in this sort of thing here, the more skeptical I grow of much collector lore, gun show old wives tales, and the like.

This is a very complicated subject, for which the remaining uniforms (how many do we really have at hand versus the totality of the things?) gives only incomplete knowledge.

[matiu]

Many thanks to all for taking the time to comment on this. Certainly room for doubt, I would say.

Thanks.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Thanks for yours thanks, in turn. Happy hunting for the elusive object we all seek mostly in vain.

[Bob Hritz]

I know how collecting, on a budget, can be difficult. However, it is better to save up and buy something that is faultlessly original the first time, than to buy the bargain in hopes it may be authentic. Often times, the item you really struggle to get turns out to be the long term bargain. I have not found internet sellers who are giving away authentic SS material at bargain prices.

I am always dissapointed when I see posts of ridiculous fakes when there is authentic material, for sale, right on these forums. I guess you get what you pay for.

Bob Hritz

[Friedrich-Berthold]

The whole thing is really a hall of mirrors in the fun house for so many, which is quite sad. The internet makes all of this seem so near, but it is really so far in the sense that the pictures reveal only a part of the whole. And how can the beginner make sense of the over supply of opinions, websites, savants, know-it-alls in an age where the methodical and plodding acquisition of knowledge via craft and art is a laughable remnant of a silly, distant past. The internet has made pornography omnipresent, it has made all forms of trade universal without the human elements of the market in their positive dimension (i.e. I am thinking of my time looking at fruit and vegetables in central European markets on said day...you can smell the fruit and examine it closely and also examine the person selling it to you as persons and animals have examined each other since the Lord G-d established fruits, vegetables and animals....) and it traps and fools a lot of honest people who want military regalia, but who are not privy to the inner circle without huge sacrifice. I hope our labor here has improved things, but it has also empowered the fakers to make better fakes at the same time, which then trap the novices and not so novices. I am skeptical of the whole thing, really.

Happy holidays all the same and may your "prongs" remain uncrimped, and your Stirndrueckfrei "stitches" conform to the check list of approved makers and their methods of craft. May the spirit of Robert Lubstein fill your stockings not with lumps of coal, but with finely tailored caps (with high 'peaks' which should be called crowns) that place no weight on your furrowed brows, confronted with such diversions to peace and goodwill among humankind as global jihadism, the sovereign debt crisis, disappearing coral atolls, and cosmic boredom in the 21st century.

PS Now that I have peered into the Handbuch d. RZM, I have very bad news for those who adhere to the maker's dogma of holy stitches.....