The anatomy of a fake (The Alteste)

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I would first like to thank Bob Hritz for his generous contribution to the forum. Bob gave me this visor to do as I wish and use for educational purposes. I thought it might be a good idea to completely tear apart one of these Alteste’s to see what we can find out about their construction. Now not all Alteste’s are easy to spot. The early ones used mostly period parts; the later ones used mostly post war parts. Some are marked Alteste and some use other marks. Most you will find without a shield, the tell tail sign of the Alteste. I hope this little exercise is useful in identifying an Alteste whether or not you find one marked with the name. Now we will examine one part by part and see how the construction matches up to period construction.

First the wool. In photos is looks pretty good but in hand the material in nothing like the wool on a period visor. It is almost like felt. The trikot Alteste’s are much closer to period caps.

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The inside is pretty easy to spot. Most they switch out the sweatbands and visors but this example is how the later ones came. The lining is more of a cotton type material and the sweatband is a poor attempt at making it look like Erzat.

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On ones with bullion piping look for the tell tail sign. As Stonemint calls it the snake eating it’s tail.

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Here are a few shots of the peak stiffener and visor. The visor is made to look like pressed paper but is in fact plastic.

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The visor does have the standard V-notch just like period visors.

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The visor is glued onto the base unlike real period visors then sewn. As you can see here the remnants of the glue.

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The visor cut in half exposing the plastic.

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The Alteste looks to use a period cap spring.

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The peak stiffener looks like the Pekuro civil ones. Look at this close. All Alteste’s I have seen use the same stiffener.

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The cheese cloth on these is only in limited areas. I period visor would have cheese cloth under the whole lining. Also note it lights up like a Christmas tree under a black light.

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The pasteboard is your standard treated cardboard and does look like period examples.

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The inside of the cap had very limited padding and in places period visors do not such as the top of the cap.

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The lining has the ends in the classic roll under. Although some period visors were made like this it was pretty rare. I always look twice when a lining is tucked like this.

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Here are a couple of pics showing how the piping is attached.

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2nd pic