Tropical Panzer Officer's Overseas Cap

[TONY Q.W.]

Thankfully other areas were inadequate in detail or finish.
Mark.

Exactly Mark, if we add all the key points that make an original it would be impossible for the fakers to come up with at once. We are still covered.

[Mark Gibson]

Good point, Tony.
I even had no problems with the ones on the Km cap - they are darn close to the examples on my original caps...(I do not believe they are removed sets from O/S caps). Thankfully other areas were inadequate in detail or finish.
Mark.

I do recall the cap on Regimentals that had been made using the lining from an original side cap so I wouldn't be surprised at one being stripped as a parts cap for other caps.
Speaking of Regimentals, his new PzGren em's cap is a bit of a joke. Nice original Frankenstein M40 with post war added insignia and soutache. The price is just ridiculous.

Mark

[Tim O'Keefe]

Greetings all

Just a p/s on these four bad caps that i posted recently. All four were being offered as originals with original prices from the same seller. I could tell a little something was wrong with each of them but that they are all rather good attempts to mislead.
The stamps are real attempts to copy originals and the grommets looked almost ok (on a couple). Anyway just wanted to let you know i had a reason to post all of these, as its a real minefield out there. Appreciate all who helped

stay frosty
Tim

[Ralph Heinz]

Cap grommets

Gentlemen,

It never ceases to amaze me that some of us collecors think original cap grommets can be removed from an original tropical sidecap and then be reset into a repro billed tropical field cap to fool the unwary.

Nearly all of these grommets were made from zinc or a similar alloy that contained zinc. Zinc is often derisively referred to as "pot metal" -- it is brittle and breaks easily. Steel would have been much more ductile -- meaning it would bend back and forth without breaking as quickly as quickly as zinc would but it would also rust. Zinc was almost certainly chosen because it wouldn't rust and was cheap.

When you bend metal you change the crystaline structure of the metal -- it's called "work hardening." Bend a piece of steel like a piece of wire back and forth a few times and it will break. Even soft ductile metal like brass in cartridge case necks has to be annealed (heated to a certain temperature and then plunged into water) so that it can be reloaded many times -- otherwise it will eventually split open and be ruined. You can only reload cases so many times before you have to anneal them. I've done that hundreds of times.

When grommets were set, the tubular shape of the outside piece had small scores inside the edge -- usually six of these little cuts so that the end would split nicely into six prongs over the washer when it was squeezed between the male and female ends of the grommet setter. Sometimes, due to tiny fluctuations in the hardness of the metal around the edge, it wouldn't split so nicely and thus we see caps with several very large prongs next to smaller ones. A grommet might only split into 3 or 4 unequal prongs.

The problem is that you simply can't undo these prongs without breaking that cheap brittle pot metal. Try it yourself. I've tried it on much better steel grommets in a moth eaten WWI US army officer's visor cap just to see if it was possible. There was simply no way to unbend those prongs into a perfect tube once again so that you could slip the washer off. Some prongs broke, the washer was all scarred up and it was a total failure. With zinc it would have been even worse.

I had a visitor a few months ago who is an engineer who had a part in the remanufacture of two ME109s and he was telling me about the metal extrusion of a critical aluminum inner part of the wings that they had to reinvent. I showed him a couple tropical caps and told him that collectors thought you could remove the grommets and reinstall them. With no prompting from me, he said it was not possible, that (just as I detailed above) the zinc would be work hardened and would break easily.

Attached is a photo of a grommet in an unissued Hans Brandt tropical sidecap that another collector sent me years ago to photograph. This shows what happened when someone tried to remove the grommet. Anyone think it's still possible to remove 4 of these from two identical tropical sidecaps and then reset them perfectly into a repro field cap after seeing this photo of two of them in a tropical officer's sidecap? Remember too, that zinc usually corrodes and often has a very rough surface to it from decades of corrosion. Anything you try to do to it will leave scars and disturb the ages of patina and that corrosion only makes the grommet more brittle.

I know this was probably one of those stories that started out at a militaria show where a couple collectors were speculating about how someone might make a fake cap and like a story told to one person in a large circle and then repeated by each person in turn around the circle -- when it got back to the start, it was an entirely different story. Now it was HOW fakers were actually removing those grommets from lowly sidecaps and resetting them in the much more desireable billed field caps.

It just aint so. It'll only cost you a few hundred dollars to buy up one or two tropical sidecaps by the same maker to become sadder and wiser if you still believe you can remove grommets and reset them in another cap. If you still want to try it on something similar but a darn sight cheaper, one make of US Army leggings had very similar zinc grommets for the laces. Just to prove the point to myself, I tried to remove one of these too and it was a total disaster. I guess I should have made a video of that.

Mit freundlichen Grussen,
Ralph

[Tim O'Keefe]

Hello Ralph

Thanks so much for detailed reply. Let me say first that i have been wrong on two of these caps. As i doubted all four at first. Still so much to learn.....
And quite pleased your giving us your insite

with deep respect
Tim

[NZMark]

Thanks Again Ralph,
The detailed explanation about the grommets is very illuminating...
Best Regards from New Zealand
Mark

[90th Light]

So where does Ralph's comment about the grommets on this cap leave us with our judgement about it.

Also reading his other threads recently, he has put forward an explanation about the cockade being original

Is this DAK officers cap a very rare original or a clever fake ???

How do we still feel about this one,

Chris

[Tim O'Keefe]

Hi Chris

Great discussion everyone, really am learning today.
Take a good look at Jose's Tropical headgear book vol 2. page # 53-57 and the Schiffer book page # 179, there is an Officer's cap which matches rather closely with this one, while there are a few minor differences pointed out by Mark G, the insignia application, stamp, grommets all look very close to this one posted. Looks like it is a good example imho.

best regards
Tim

[Tim O'Keefe]

update old thread with photos

Though this thread is over six years old wanted to add a couple photos of this very interesting cap since a thread about a Pz cap without photos is of little value. If anyone has more photos of this cap please post them up here, especially the grommets. & thanks MarkG for saving this photos from years ago which i should have done

Since this writing over six years ago this cap still has alot going for it, how do we feel about it now ?

& Ralph's post # 19 is a classic from him...

[B. N. Singer]

Though this thread is over six years old wanted to add a couple photos of this very interesting cap...Since this writing over six years ago this cap still has alot going for it, how do we feel about it now ?...

About the same

B. N. Singer

[pauke]

cap

The 2009 posts don't do anything positive for the one in #24 other than say it is not a wartime original cap.

[Tim O'Keefe]

Thanks Mr Singer & Pauke,

Its always a pleasure to hear from either of you Yes, makers stamp & cockade for starters. Though this type of cockade as been found on at least three different makers from 1940-41, it is still not accepted by many collectors.

Two reasons for bringing this one back up. Without at least a couple pics this thread is useless. & Ralph's post #19 comments on re-working the grommets still holds true today as we sometimes still here this story....

with appreciation
Tim