SS M43 Panzer Cap

[John Hodgin]

John,

My comment was not directed at disputing Mr. Singer’s right to his opinion. It was directed at opinions made which (clearly) generate questions requesting “why?”, wherein he refuses to assist us in understanding his position. As for my snide comment, it wasn’t directed at his “opinion” it was directed in his disregard in clarifying his position and his observations and thus his seeming disregard for those of us who are trying to learn something from this thread.

Thanks for explaining Rick.

This may seem simplistic, and equally frustrating, but sometimes the "why" involves decades of studying known veteran originals. Gestalt: it is the lining, material, sewing, marking, insignia, buttons, all considered. The answer cannot always be boiled down to a few details.

Recently I have been trying to relate the same information about reproduction Luftwaffe M41 caps, and I can tell you this, there are Luftwaffe M41 caps blessed as genuine on this Forum which are outright fakes. But they mimic the real deal closely, so the argument rages on, fortunately most fake 41s have fake eagles making it easier to determine them. But then, you have to know your Luftwaffe eagles to know....

I wish I could help you with specifics regarding Chris's caps, but I am not an SS collector, and perhaps Mr. Singer or others may add more.

I have met and talked with Mr. Singer at both the SOS and Max shows. His collecting philosophy (I think) is very "textbook." This means he might pass on foreign and field produced pieces, that are good, because their construction is not typically German. While foreign and field produced pieces are not "textbook," fakes are also not textbook. And there is the problem. I suspect that Chris's caps, if genuine, are definitely not German manufactured. Therefore Mr. Singer is comfortable they are not his.

John

[Rene Chavez]

HBT rayon lining = FAKE

Known history of hat since WWII = FAKE

90% of M-43's shown on this forum = FAKE

All you have to do is say FAKE on every M-43 shown, and you will be in agreement 90% of the time with those that judge these on a regular basis.

Richard

Here is another SS M43 with HBT lining:

http://www.relichunter.com/wssm43.jpg

The reason I'm posting these links is to illustrate that M43 fieldcaps being SS, Panzer, etc cannot be judge as a fake just because it has HBT lining.
My point is that each fieldcap will stand on its own merit and is very dificult no matter how much experience you have to judge a cap with only pictures and say is a fake because you don't like this or that....... unless the fieldcap is an obvious fake.

Rene Chavez
http://axis101.bizland.com/PzM431.htm

[Tim O'Keefe]

Hi Rene

Richard's post was tongue in cheek, though i should not speak for him, as he is much more eloquent than I.

Thanks for showing more examples of these with the HBT lining and agree each cap must be judged on its own merits not just tossed in the junk bin cause of this feature.

Originally Posted by Richard P
HBT rayon lining = FAKE

Known history of hat since WWII = FAKE

90% of M-43's shown on this forum = FAKE

All you have to do is say FAKE on every M-43 shown, and you will be in agreement 90% of the time with those that judge these on a regular basis.

Richard

[Rene Chavez]

Thanks Tim...... I know that Richard's comment was as you say tongue in cheek.

Rene Chavez
http://axis101.bizland.com/PzM431.htm

[90th Light]

I think in the light of what is now being discussed about what collectors have or have not seen in their time or got directly from veterans that we all need to take heed.

I have copied and pasted something which I posted in another thread about SS M43 caps with HBT lining and also SS M43 caps with grommets. I feel that to add this to this thread has real relevance to the points being made and adds to what we are all saying here esp. given the way that any SS M43 with an HBT lining is automatically rejected outright, end of story but a WH or LW example is no problem and probably original. This just lacks comprehension that the one an only original SS M43's with HBT lining are those found at Dachau in May 1945.

This is the experience of a collector of many years of collecting Third Reich material so I ask that you all please take the time to read a day that he has never forgotten.

Many thanks, 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"

[Willi Z.]

Here is another SS M43 with HBT lining:

http://www.relichunter.com/wssm43.jpg

The reason I'm posting these links is to illustrate that M43 fieldcaps being SS, Panzer, etc cannot be judge as a fake just because it has HBT lining.
My point is that each fieldcap will stand on its own merit and is very dificult no matter how much experience you have to judge a cap with only pictures and say is a fake because you don't like this or that....... unless the fieldcap is an obvious fake.

Rene Chavez
http://axis101.bizland.com/PzM431.htm

This is a textbook Italian made SS M43 and the HBT lining would be something we would expect to see on this particular variation. I brought this one to the SOS last year.

[Lenny W]

This is a textbook Italian made SS M43 and the HBT lining would be something we would expect to see on this particular variation. I brought this one to the SOS last year.

indeed i remember that one willi

[90th Light]

Having read through all this again I am left feeling that HBT linings is something not very well understood by the collectors of M43 caps and perhaps we need to all put a bit more into such a study.

Anyway to get the ball rolling I started to go through a few more of the items fron the north of Italy and veteran brought back from those trying times in and around Trieste May 1945.

As I studied more of the items I found another example of one of the types of HBT being used. ebony was here at the time because we were looking at the thread and discussing some of the comments made so I asked him to grab a couple of photos to post.

Even though this is not a cap it gives an interesting insight into what was being used by these SS units at that time in this area.

This example most likely came from the 7th SS training and replacement unit who were assigned to the 24th SS Division by May 1945 to increase its strength and hold a corridor open in case the 7th SS could escape down it to surrender to the NZ division then entering Trieste.

I will now get ebony to post the images,

Chris

[ebony]

A

[ebony]

B

[ebony]

C

[ebony]

D

[ebony]

E

[90th Light]

Now not only do the images A to E which ebony has posted show the HBT lining in that pale color like we see on the black Panzer SS M43 which I posted in post number 233 but it also shows the Italian type wool which we see used on the caps shown in posts number 232 and 234 plus the same type of stitching

and// there is always an "and", we have a clear connection to SS forces in the north of Italy at that time.

Now that got me thinking about an SS M43 which member Robert Coutts posted and this was instantly dismised without so much as a second thought as being reproduction because of the strange HBT used in that example. In fact some even laughed and joked about it but I am not so sure that we should not in fact be making a serious study of all these HBT's

Any way I have asked ebony to also post a couple of shots of Roberts HBT lining and you can see what I mean,

Chris

[ebony]

I