SS M 43 Panzer up for Disscusion

[90th Light]

nor am i just love collecting and the history of WWII and will prabobly die collecting this stuff as well

Me too Lenny, some people have drinking problems, gambling problems etc.

Mine is a collecting problem and I love every minute of it.

Have to agree with another WAF member who said, if I did not have to go to work then I could easily spend all day discussing this stuff on WAF.

There is so much I have to get round to posting, Chris

[90th Light]

And third, the Japanese never produced a good enough repro that match the original A-2 jacket.

[/QUOTE]

Dave, you have handled a reproduction of an American WW2 flight jacket by the"Real Mc Coy" have you not ???

Does not sound like it from this. Not kidding you but when you do I think you will find they are as close as you can get to the real deal.

The japanese are hard to beat for the nitty-gritty details,

Chris

[jacquesf]

Chris, who are the friend whose book you are referring to? I would like to lookout for it. Jacques

[Tim O'Keefe]

Perhaps its Gary Wilkins book, The Collector's Guide to Cloth Third Reich Military Headgear.

[90th Light]

Hello to all,

I have talked to my friend about this thread and he has followed it with great interest. To put it concisely, he is quite shocked by some of what has been posted here and the lack of willingness to accept that we might not know it all. My hope is to get some of the collectors who have seen so much to post on this forum and eventually share what treasures they are sitting on,

Any way, I am working hard to encourage such collectors to share with us and in this I am including not only my friend (who has written books on Third Reich militaria but at this stage does not want his name mentioned) but also some of the others who have emailed me to share what they know or the fact that reading this is exactly the reasons why they no longer post here.

In almost all cases, they have advised me that posting my caps will probably do no good at this stage to change some of the mind-sets which exist on these points.

My conclusion is to now change tact because I do not want to turn this into yet another Carl Halfar debate and that is exactly what is happening. Another reason is to bring home in a different way the point I am trying to make that we need to seriously re-vist some of the mind sets we have and how we debate such issues because to be honest it does not take long before it is going no where, going round in circles and just becomes an excercise in self praise or one-up-manship.

There are of course also other reasons why I am not rushing at this stage with this one, such as security and other threads like the "ball hinge glider" which in all fairness I promised a long time ago to post images of and so far have not got around to doing so I should attend to that one first.

Anyway way I will try and make this my last word on this one before I am accused of any more and fall out with any more members by such endeavours to get original M43 caps recognised for what they are.

and// there is always an "and"

my friend has asked if I could add this detail which he was good enough to put together about the "Augustdorf" find in a hope that some reading this may realise that original SS stuff was still being found in quantity through out the 1990's and even into the 2000's. Our belief is that this is in fact where some of these SS M43's with the olive brown/green bias material and long pull downs have come from and as such are perfectly legitimate. The cap which started this thread could of course be such an example of such a find.

All the best, Chris


"EDITED AND ENLARGED VERSION:
> > My friend was in Bielefeld and saw some of the horde of
> > W-SS material taken from a farmhouse near Augustdorf in late 2001. This
> > led from the discovery by a German collector of a store of old W-SS
> > uniforms and field gear in a farm house that had been removed from the
> > nearby W-SS barracks at Augustdorf in early April 1945 when the base was
> > evacuated by the W-SS as the Americans advanced. Augustdorf was the base
> > on the northern edge of the Sennelager training area used by the W-SS to
> > train crews of the heavy (Tiger) tank battalions. Among the large amount
> > of W-SS Panzer uniforms uncovered in early 2001 were at least three black W-SS
> > Panzer M43 caps, all with single button flaps and a separate eagle and
> > skull insignia attached to the front of the cap above the single composite retaining
> > button. These three caps had linings of steel blue-grey herring bone twill
> > material. My friend remembers the caps very well. When he saw the pile of
> > W-SS Panzer material two of the three black M43 caps had been sold. He
> > could have bought the last one but dithered because he was short of money
> > at the time. He has regretted that decision since. For those who may not
> > have heard of this amazing discovery the material had belonged to the old
> > farmer who died in 2000. Relatives who came to clear out the farm found
> > one room with an old industrial sewing machine and piles of clothing- some
> > 50 intact W-SS overcoats, more overcoats that had been shortened and
> > converted to single button front, black wrappers that had been cut down
> > and re-worked into a single button front, dyed a variety of browns and
> > greens, other tunics cut up and in various stages of civilian conversion,
> > boxes of scraps of large and small pieces of uniform cloth, and luckily
> > for collectors there were still a number of uniform items that had not
> > suffered from the old farmer's scissors. Camouflage items, like
> > smocks, had survived presumably because there was not the same ready
> > market for converted camouflages clothing as there was for dyed and
> > re-worked overcoats and wrappers and tunics. The German collectors who saw
> > the room assumed that production in the farm house had stopped at some
> > time after the war when Germans were no longer buying converted military
> > clothing. But the point of this story is simply that among this material
> > taken from the clothing store of the W-SS barracks at Ausgustdorf there
> > were black M43 caps with a blue-grey HBT lining.
> >
> >This amazing story from Augustdorf is one of the great finds of "treasure" in
Germany in recent years.The big German dealers, fists full of DM, were all on the
scene with a day of word of the discovery leaking out. There was some fast and
furious bidding by the dealers to get their hands on the treasure trove. Among
this large amount of W-SS uniforms were camouflage items like smocks and panzer
wrappers, plane tree helmet covers, though only in very small numbers, two or
three of each. There were aparently none of the late war pea pattern uniform
combinations. Most of the top end items, like still intact black wrappers with
the insignia still attached (some of the uniforms had their arm eagles and collar
patches removed) were sold immediately to advanced German collectors without ever
appearing on a dealer's list. How did this material end up in a farm house? There
were two schools of thought among the German collectors and dealers who saw it.
One possibility is that the W-SS deposited the material there themselves before
evacuating the base, to protect and preserve it by concealing it in the farm
house. This is a distinct possibility, given that the material included a few
pieces of field gear, e.g. bread bags, gasmasks and canisters, ammunition pouches,
water bottles, belts and buckles, boots even. The other possible explanation would
have to be that the farmer himself took his horse and cart to the barracks and
made a number of trips between the barracks and his farm, which was only about 2km
from the base. Residents living in there in 1945 reported the base had been
looted, by local villagers and farmers, in the hours between the time the W-SS
left the barracks and when the Americans arrived, about one day later. Even
though there were American combat units close by they did not actually enter the
base for over 12 hours after the WSS had left. In this time people were seen
walking through the barracks carrying away anything they felt was useful. Most
local people came looking for food, but things like towels and kitchen utensils,
stationery from the office, small items of furniture were removed too. It would
have been possible for a farmer with foresight of the likely shortage of clothing
in a postwar Germany to have come in and loaded up his cart with uniforms. It is
however a moot point as to why he would have also taken an assortment of basic
field gear. From the evidence of production converting the uniforms for civilian
use over a period, and assuming much had been sold by the farmer, there must have
been a considerable amount of uniform left in the farm house in late March 1945.
One can only speculate what may have been stored in the farm house in
late-March-early April 1945 in total.

END"

p.s. could I please make one last request from my friend who wrote this. Could some of the experts reading this please look at the thread in the SS forum about the "A Nice Wallonie Image" and add some comments about the SS M43's with grommets. These photos are an amazing find of an M43 with grommets being worn. He has one and would really appreciate your thoughts. Please have a look, it is probably one off the best bits of photograpic evidence concerning M43's to turn up in a long time.

[Vet44]

Hi Chris
I can confirm the story. In my collection, was some pieces of this found.
I know the house in Pivitsheide : Pivitsheide is a little village near the Augustdorf
SS Panzer Barraks. The house is around 1,5km from the barracks area.

In the wartime the house was a" pub/saloon"
At that time, for reasons of air defense much outsourced. Very often in the halls of any pubs in the area of Bekleidungskammern or barracks.

Greetings Andi

[90th Light]

Hi Chris
I can confirm the story. In my collection, was some pieces of this found.
I know the house in Pivitsheide : Pivitsheide is a little village near the Augustdorf
SS Panzer Barraks. The house is around 1,5km from the barracks area.

In the wartime the house was a" pub/saloon"
At that time, for reasons of air defense much outsourced. Very often in the halls of any pubs in the area of Bekleidungskammern or barracks.

Greetings Andi

Thanks Andi,

my friend said we will hit the real collectors in the know if they knew about this.

Do you know any one who got any M43's out of this hoard ?

Best regards, Chris

[Vet44]

Thanks Andi,

my friend said we will hit the real collectors in the know if they knew about this.

Do you know any one who got any M43's out of this hoard ?

Best regards, Chris

Sorry, I don't know where are going the caps.
I know some dealer in germany and I know one big dealer in the united states bought from this hort. Some collectors in the near from my hometown too. I give this name not known.
The pieces are now sold around the world several times.

Greetings Andi

[J Melvin]

p.s. could I please make one last request from my friend who wrote this. Could some of the experts reading this please look at the thread in the SS forum about the "A Nice Wallonie Image" and add some comments about the SS M43's with grommets. These photos are an amazing find of an M43 with grommets being worn. He has one and would really appreciate your thoughts. Please have a look, it is probably one off the best bits of photograpic evidence concerning M43's to turn up in a long time.

The Wallonie photo is no surprise to me. I've always believed there to be a transitional cap between the berg and final production M43s that contains features of both. Here are a couple of threads that deal with transitional style of caps:

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...itional&page=2

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...highlight=berg

[BenVK]

Short peaks and grommets are a whole other discussion..

I'd like to ask a question that's been puzzling me from the very first day I started collecting. We have collectors shows here in the UK but I've only been to a few. I don't find them to be enjoyable on account of all the fakes and all the BS talked by most of the people running the stalls.
So, when you guys in the States all talk about a batch of fake this or that turning up at this or that gun/collectors show, what's that all about? Does someone come along, set up a stall and open up a box full of dozens of Pz SS M43's for example? If that's how it happens then I understand completely how some of you guys can be so sure when you see one of them floating around years later.

[phild]

Short peaks and grommets are a whole other discussion..

I'd like to ask a question that's been puzzling me from the very first day I started collecting. We have collectors shows here in the UK but I've only been to a few. I don't find them to be enjoyable on account of all the fakes and all the BS talked by most of the people running the stalls.
So, when you guys in the States all talk about a batch of fake this or that turning up at this or that gun/collectors show, what's that all about? Does someone come along, set up a stall and open up a box full of dozens of Pz SS M43's for example? If that's how it happens then I understand completely how some of you guys can be so sure when you see one of them floating around years later.

In my experience the waves of a certain kind of fake will start appearing at about the same time (maybe several at one big show or within a few months of each other at several different shows and web sites) with a number of different dealers and collectors.

I also have seen the same thing happen with real hordes or real items that have turned up....like the stani film material and the Pz wraps that GP brought out of Russia......and many other items involving other people and other hordes.

It is a mistake to dismiss any item just because it is different from what one has seen in the past...even if NO other collector has seen one like it before as fake....even if a group of these turn up near the same time on the market. It is a great reason to be cautious but not grounds alone to call it a fake.

[realone]

Well,,,,,the last post is well put,,,,so after all these disscusions,,,where are we with my hat?,,,,,

[Lenny W]

Well,,,,,the last post is well put,,,,so after all these disscusions,,,where are we with my hat?,,,,,

in the end it is the collector who has to be happy with his item your call now