Imperial War Museum London

**ME110** · 03-02-2022, 08:07 PM

Dear all,
I recently visited the IWM in London with my young son. Whilst many superb exhibits were on display, some were questionable with regards to originality. ( I fully appreciate that most museums have some fake items that have been unwittingly donated over the years). I contacted the IWM Curator and received a nice email reply asking which items were questionable and, more importantly, why I believe this to be the case. With this in mind I plan to post some photos of items held in the IWM Collection for review over the next few days. ( A lot of the IWM Collection is online).
First up, 2 SS Caps which I have doubts.
Thanks for your help in advance.
Kind regards,
Colin

**Espenlaub Militaria** · 03-02-2022 08:07 PM

We also buy and trade your items and full collections!

**ErWeSa** · 03-02-2022, 09:57 PM

We've already had a discussion about that, see here:

Schirmmutzes in the Imperial War Museum collection

and here: Visor Caps

**stonemint** · 03-03-2022, 05:51 PM

I said this 6 years ago in another thread, and I stand by it today:

Every book that I have seen on headgear has fakes in it (some more than others).

Every museum has (or has had) fakes in their collections.

As has been said time and time again, one cannot rely solely on books, museums, or "gun show lore" when becoming a serious student of the hobby.

You have to look at as many originals as you can; as many fakes as you can; study primary references; look at photos of the hats in wear; and review the pinned threads in the forums.

IMO, the recently-departed Redcoat brought ulterior motives with his seemingly innocuous post, and that is/was to establish a justification for fakes which have plastic visors.

They just simply did not exist, based upon the collective 500+ year experience of the advanced collectors in the hobby, and are not referred to in the primary source material.

Museum curators do not have the time, expense, or inclination to study such a specific sub-set of uniformology like we do (ie, TR visor caps), and that is why they can be wrong, such as the fine gentlemen at the IWM.

**another ant** · 03-07-2022, 07:03 PM

Imperial War Museum London - Fake Items?

**4737carlin** · 03-07-2022, 11:51 PM

I can see a lot of museums having fakes and copies on exhibition, not just military but art galleries too, a lot of visitors wouldn't know the difference, and the curators might just look as some exhibits as for educational purpose.