Some of my Hats I used to make

[STUG III]

I used to make M 43's, overseas, and crushers years ago. Eye's got worse, age and lack of Will to carry on not mention the God-less Commie chi....'s making them for pennies on the dollar. Here are a few I still have. I guess I have made over 300 or so various style hats since the early 1980's. It's interesting to go to show's and a site and see my hats 30 years later as original.. DL

[STUG III]

hats

My SS crusher is my favorite and the oldest in my collection. Had it since 1986. Thanks. DL

[STUG III]

hats

last of my Crushers. 11 years old. The hardest to make, no pattern, everyone made one at a time. Thanks for looking DL.

[Jean-Loup]

Some impressive work. As a person who does not collect hats, I have to say that they look like real ones to me from these photos!

How long did it take you tomake each hat? Do you sany of your work being sold as real?

JL

[DennyB]

I can relate to seeing some of your own work being passed as originals.
Minor leatherwork was one of my hobbies and I would make belts, E-tool carriers, etc for reenactor friends.
At a Houston Astro Hall gun show I spotted one of the belts that I had made as it was stamped "DJB 37" which was my intials and how old I was when I made it. It had some honest wear on it and looked pretty good. I asked the dealer "Is this original?" and he went into the story how he had picked it up from a vet's estate along with several other original items, usual sales story.
Then I pulled out my driver's license and said "I don't know how it got into a veteran's estate but I made this about 4 years ago, here are my initials and the 37 signified my age at the time."
He quickly put it under the table and walked away, obviously disgusted.
I came back later while he was talking to another customer and he had it back on the table.
I have to wonder if it is in a collection today.

[Jean-Loup]

Sorry Denny, but you are mistaken.
DJB 37 stands for 'Donau Jäger Battailon 37', the famous unit that was anihilated at Stalingrad, but later reconstituted, fighting at Alamein, Cassino, Leningrad, Avranche Arnheim, Berlin and the Po, earning them 107 knights crosses.
That belt was worth big bucks.

[DennyB]

Sorry Denny, but you are mistaken.
DJB 37 stands for 'Donau Jäger Battailon 37', the famous unit that was anihilated at Stalingrad, but later reconstituted, fighting at Alamein, Cassino, Leningrad, Avranche Arnheim, Berlin and the Po, earning them 107 knights crosses.
That belt was worth big bucks.

If it was real it would be.
When I stamped it I thought that I was putting a stamp that was unused as I had never seen a maker code of DJB.
I thought I was preventing it from being resold as original.
An honest mistake on my part.

[Bob Chatt]

DL- Any of those marked to a Herr Wiggam?

[STUG III]

hats

Mr. Chatt what ever do you mean? The answer to your question......No. The question that Jean-Loup asked was have any of my hats been sold as originals, only on a few occasions I know of. I have found one of my hats, M43 Officers Army, found at a Show back in the eighties and tried to tell the individual it was made by me. He wanted nothing to do with confession and sold it as an original. One other M43, Luftwaffe, that I had made for a reenactor made in 1983, was on Collectors Guild. It was stamped with DL the number of the hat I had made and size. I PM'd them and told them that I hat made the hat and they dropped it from the site and thanked me. Also about the manufacturing time, it takes about 4 to 5 hours to make a crusher, sometimes even longer. A M43 used to take about 3 to 4 hours. Mind you I had no patterns. It became a real bitch and was no longer fun. Thanks again. DL.

[A c h t u n g !]

I used to make M 43's, overseas, and crushers years ago. Eye's got worse, age and lack of Will to carry on not mention the God-less Commie chi....'s making them for pennies on the dollar. Here are a few I still have. I guess I have made over 300 or so various style hats since the early 1980's. It's interesting to go to show's and a site and see my hats 30 years later as original.. DL

Thank you for posting it. Always wondered how many "textbook" items in our collections are indeed original. We can only distinguish a fake if there are obvious "red flags"/flaws in construction or material. But if everything made correctly/flawlessly from original materials+insignias, and naturally aged there would be no way to tell original or fake. I believe there are a lot, a lot of fakes passed as original and reside in our collections. That's funny and sad at the same time.

[STUG III]

fakes

I agree Achtung! I sold all my hats as repro's, and marked them as such. I made these hats because at the time I enjoyed it. Along time ago there were no companies making decent M43's, SS, overseas, Crushers, and DAK related hats that were authentic. When the Swedish uniform surplus hit the shores in the early eighties it gave me a lot of material to work with. The color wasn't quite right unless you used a green dye to de-gray the wool. It was very close. Luftwaffe color was a Royal Blue dye to get the right shade. All the hats, and some uniforms all went into the reenactment community in the mid eighties. Shortly after that the hat business went by the way of the ARMY and college. DL

[Graham G]

I make crushers, but havent made many. Im also workijng on tunics now, not to sell, just for fun. also, this one has no stiffner, tis m43 style.