SS tropical field cap

**Aldo** · 10-13-2021, 01:54 AM

I purchased this SS Tropical field cap as a reproduction fill in for my collection and was surprised at the authentic look and feel of it. There is not much information on these rare caps on the forum so I had to rely on the Beaver book which has some excellent photo's as well as some website archive photo's. I thought I'd post it here and we could analyze the anatomy of the cap, I'm not really expecting much more than a lively discussion on these rare caps.
The material and cut look absolutely authentic to me but there are some discrepancies aside from the repro skull insignia. The first thing I noticed was the lack of top seam on my cap present on most examples in the Beaver book however there is one shown without the seam in the book. The two vent holes are correct but seem closer together and the bright aluminum interior looks odd. The overall interior looks realistic to me. The cap is actually a bit darker in hand, the photo's with flash and bright sunlight wash out the color a bit.

This one below in the book has no top seam but also no vent holes

Below you can clearly see the outline of another skull that has been removed slightly above the skull on the cap. These caps had the the two piece bevo tropical insignia usually and in some cases a larger sleeve eagle was used. These caps have also been observed with just skulls and no eagles.

Some visuals for comparison....

Credit: Virtual Granadier archives

Credit: SSBW archives

So is the cap an outright reproduction or is there the slightest chance it could be a real cap plundered of it's insignia, feel free to opine.

**Espenlaub Militaria** · 10-13-2021 01:54 AM

We also buy and trade your items and full collections!

**Bob Lyons** · 10-13-2021, 01:59 AM

The air vents don't look like period vents to me... which would make the entire cap rather questionable in my most humble opinion...

Bob

**Aldo** · 10-13-2021, 02:05 AM

Thank you Bob, I respect your opinion.

**ErWeSa** · 10-13-2021, 02:53 PM

by Bob Lyons

The air vents don't look like period vents to me... which would make the entire cap rather questionable in my most humble opinion...

Bob

Second time I quote Mike Seager Thomas today. Both in his vol. 1 Afrikamutze data base (original caps) (pp. 59) and vol. 2 (fake caps) (pp. 147) he dedicates an entire chapter to the eyelet-problem. If we can believe him, all original eyelets had the "petal" pattern on the inside. Of course he only treats the WH examples but I think it is legit to assume that the eyelets were the same on SS caps.

**ErWeSa** · 10-13-2021, 06:55 PM

It seems to be the brother/sister of this one (which would explain why the insignia were removed):

https://eu-browse.startpage.com/av/a...8eab0d6c116811