pinking shears

[Paul70]

I was told by an "expert" that pinking shears were not around during WWII and anything that has a cut with them is fake.

I have always questioned this as I was given a small Swas flag from a friend from his family in Germany that was cut out with pinking shears.

Well I was watching "World at War" and they were giving out Volksstrum armbands and a closeup of the stack reveiled they all had rough pinking shear edges. not even folded over!

I am now convinced that it is OK to have something cut with pinking shears.

Paul

[stonemint]

I think someone misunderstood our comments on the Headgear forum. Pinking shears have been around since the 19th century, and were used during the Third Reich--although not profusely for tailored items.

The issue with pinking shears is that a certain high-end visor cap faker always used pinking shears to finish off his cap linings--something we have yet to see used on period visor caps.
We surmised that the reason they were not used to finish the linings during the TR era was simple mass-production--the use of pinking shears simply required too much time when cutting the bolts of rayon.

Hope this dispels this myth.

[phild]

They were invented in 1893 and I would bet that even un-explored hinterland of Western Europe had found them by 1943!

You hear and read a lot of crap in this hobby. We had a term for this type of thing in the Army, but I had better not use it on the forum.

[Paul70]

Thanks

The expert is the typical case of a guy who knows alot but assumes he knows everything.

Thanks for clarifying this.

Paul