Another local pick up
A ww2 tam o shanter made by A&J gelfer of Glasgow in 1940.
This was sourced not too far away from me. The seller told me
“ It's from a farm at Rothienorman. We found it in the farm servants feeing kist which basically contained all of his clothes dating to before and after the war. The farming family were Ogg but the old man I bought from only remembered the farm servant as Mr O”
So unfortunately I don’t know who owned the hat directly but we do know at least his peacetime profession. I have cleaned it a little bit as there was some spider egg sack remains. On top of that there are a few moth nips but nothing too extreme. I am rather happy the Gordon highlanders cap badge is confirmed to have been with the hat since the war. I feel a lot of these hats got chopped and changed after the war. The fact the date is present is also nice as it confirms it’s a war time example and not post war as these sorta hats don’t really go through much changes.
If you know your Scottish headgear then you may wonder why it’s lacking a tartan backing behind the Badge. I too wondered this and my dad said well sometimes the soldiers just didn’t do it or the fact may be since those backing tartans were sometimes not directly stitched rather pinned in place by the badge it may of just fallen off at some point. I don’t intend to source a replacement as I don’t wish to modify this piece.
It’s a pretty well constructed piece and certainly feels high quality. With all British headwear it has a certain smell to it I doubt reproductions will ever match!
One thing to note is the only other ww2 Scottish regiment cap I have is also A&J gelfer ( from a guy in Dundee) so it seems logical I am more likely to end up with a Scottish gelfer hats than English companies for locally sourced headgear.
Hopefully this is something interesting to you guys. With my dad and relatives having served with the Gordon highlanders I feel more inclined to collect these items!
Cheers
John
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