Pre RZM Allgemeine-SS Hat

[Bob Hritz]

I was lucky enough to find this at last year's MAX Show. It has the early smooth band and the placement of the skull indicates that a first pattern skull was probably worn and the second pattern was placed through the same prong holes. There is evidence of an earlier eagle.

Bob Hritz

[Bob Hritz]

Profile

[Bob Hritz]

Interior

[Bob Hritz]

Logo

[NTZ]

Great looking visor. I love the older smooth bands.

[Bob Hritz]

Hello Nick,

The entire hat is the smooth material, with no ribbing at all. It is the only one I have ever had, in this material. It has some damage (mothing) to the piping and is now on a hat block to help it regain it's original shape.

Bob Hritz

[N.C. Wyeth]

Bob,

Awesome cap! I really enjoy the pre-RZM and private-purchase pieces. I think I might have a distant "cousin" to your cap . . . it has the smooth band as well. When I received it from Houston many years ago, it had suffered from many years of storage in a crushed-up position. With a little "persuasion" over time, it has finally come back close to it's original shape. The exterior held up nicely through all of it's time in poor storage, but the interior did not survive the struggle quite as well. This one too has had an earlier eagle (I'm not sure about the skull) attached at one time, but somewhere along the road, someone replaced the eagle with a bad replica . . .

Brad

[N.C. Wyeth]

The interior did not survive the test of crushed-storage so well . . . but on the brighter side of things, it does make for great study of construction techniques!

Brad

[Panzer Rob]

I was lucky enough to find this at last year's MAX Show. It has the early smooth band and the placement of the skull indicates that a first pattern skull was probably worn and the second pattern was placed through the same prong holes. There is evidence of an earlier eagle.

Bob Hritz

Bob-

A beautiful and rare piece of SS headgear. I agree about the insignia being swapped - there is photographic evidence to support that all sorts of insignia was switched and swapped from cap to cap throughout the years. While some might consider "non-textbook" insignia a liability, I for one consider it to be part of what makes collecting these caps so interesting and challenging and accept non-regulation insignia (providing the wear and aging is consistent with the cap and “feels” right). You can never be 100% sure, but sometimes your gut just tells you it’s right. I know this wouldn’t be in your collection if you had any serious doubts

Rob