one of many....

[John Walker]

This cap is one of the many tropical caps for sale on many dealers sights. What are your thoughts?

[besslein]

original

[W.Unland]

I am not a cap collector, however; I distinctly remember around 1971 or so hundreds of these caps came on the market, and were around $25 each. I had 3 or 4 myself as trade stock. At that time though NONE had a colored branch of service satouche.

Now however; ALL that I see have the satouche. Am I missing something? Were hundreds MORE of these caps recently uncovered with satouche? I don't remember seeing but one or two back in the day that were so embellished. OR could these be the same caps after a bit of "enhancement"?

Just askin.

W.Unland

[John Walker]

Part of me wants one but I don't want a doctored up one.I wish someone knew for sure.

[stonemint]

I am not a cap collector, however; I distinctly remember around 1971 or so hundreds of these caps came on the market, and were around $25 each. I had 3 or 4 myself as trade stock. At that time though NONE had a colored branch of service satouche.

Now however; ALL that I see have the satouche. Am I missing something? Were hundreds MORE of these caps recently uncovered with satouche? I don't remember seeing but one or two back in the day that were so embellished. OR could these be the same caps after a bit of "enhancement"?

Just askin.

W.Unland

Bill, I recall that too. Loads of unissued DAK stuff was found in a warehouse, and the cache included felt tropenhelms as well.
As I do not collect Schiffchens, I don't know if these soutache ones are a recent find or not, but they are commonly available.

[anmarlodz]

Few years back a stockhouse of tropical stuff had been found in Austria that's why you can find so many 'Hans Brandt' caps for sale or 'LLG Hessen' or Rb Nr tropical belts etc.

[John Walker]

Do you think these are of the period?Is there a way to know for sure?By looking at references it looks fine.

[W.Unland]

Few years back a stockhouse of tropical stuff had been found in Austria that's why you can find so many 'Hans Brandt' caps for sale or 'LLG Hessen' or Rb Nr tropical belts etc.

OK. But why would warehoused caps have satouche? The warehouse stash back in the 70's were stock caps. The satouche would have been added at the unit level depending on the branch. I really doubt that caps were stocked with satouche. What if you needed infantry caps and they were already mounted with red satouche. NO supply depot would work that way.

Personally I think the caps are real, but I am almost convinced these are the same hoard of caps from back in the day that have reappeared with nice colored satouche of ALL branches available. If the 70's caps were a different group what happened to all of them. They were the 2nd most common caps available at the time. Literally 50-75 available at every show, and NOW they have all disappeared. NOW only satouche enhanced caps are on the market. Where are all the "plain" caps these days?

Regards,
Bill Unland

[Silesien]

They weren't found in a warehouse; they were found in boxcars in a wrecked train in Austria. Local farmers scooped them up along with whatever else was on the train & they were found at farms in the area, many in factory-tied bundles. I still have one tied bundle left with a size tag '55'. Sorry I cannot post pictures of it, as am not an association member. W. Unland is correct, 99% of that cache did not have the soutache. Also found were big balls of the cap cloth to be recycled; the balls were made of caps that had been cut into tiny strips by farm women using razor blades, very interesting when seeing these balls of material was the razor blades had cut right thru the blue eagles & cockades ! They just didn't care. Also found on the farms were DAK web belts that had been stitched together ( tongues removed ) to make long belts to be used with pulleys on farm machinery. Bill is correct; they were $25 each,- I had dozens of them. Interesting: when mailing these from Austria, the guy who had found the hoard sometimes used to turn each cap inside-out & use each cap as packing dunnage by filling each cap with unissued insignias & shoulder boards of all kinds.

[PanzerJager1944]

To add to this story, I know from a good long time collector friend there where hoards of these unissued tropical caps found in bunkers in the alpine redoubt during the 70's. He was stationed in Germany at the time in the army and was involved with the black market and a underground group called the Hoffman Brigade. He told me stories about going into the bunkers and finding hoards of unissued gear and insignia, one included a room where the crates had busted open and the floor was entirely covered in these tropical caps. He still has one of the caps from that bunker and it does not have a satouche. According to him the ones from that hoard did not have any satouce. He actually remarked at a show one time about the abundance of caps with the satouche and related the story about the bunker find. He also mentioned as well that a lot of this stuff that was found in the bunkers was imported and sold through George Peterson.

Regards,

[afrikasandman]

From what I have seen of the cap I do like it. Seems to be soutached as a recon which isn't as common to find. I don't care for unissued items and the maker is not overly desirable due to the caches found. The ones worth money are the ones that were used and not part of the cache. Still an original cap that sat out the war. Matt

[OSS]

OK. But why would warehoused caps have satouche? The warehouse stash back in the 70's were stock caps. The satouche would have been added at the unit level depending on the branch. I really doubt that caps were stocked with satouche. What if you needed infantry caps and they were already mounted with red satouche. NO supply depot would work that way.

Personally I think the caps are real, but I am almost convinced these are the same hoard of caps from back in the day that have reappeared with nice colored satouche of ALL branches available. If the 70's caps were a different group what happened to all of them. They were the 2nd most common caps available at the time. Literally 50-75 available at every show, and NOW they have all disappeared. NOW only satouche enhanced caps are on the market. Where are all the "plain" caps these days?

Regards,
Bill Unland

Your reasoning sounds logical but nevertheless you are mistaken; German Army field caps were manufactured (at the factory) with soutache until the middle of 1942 at which time they were no longer applied and those held by quartermasters and those caps already issued were to have the soutache removed (you will commonly see the shadow of removed soutaches on faded tropical field caps and occasionally find unissued ones with the remnants of removed soutache). while there were many original soutached overseas caps from the seventies find, the ones you see today were squirrelled away from that same find and only recently surfaced in California. I believe most of them are genuine.

[Tim O'Keefe]

Your reasoning sounds logical but nevertheless you are mistaken; German Army field caps were manufactured (at the factory) with soutache until the middle of 1942 at which time they were no longer applied and those held by quartermasters and those caps already issued were to have the soutache removed (you will commonly see the shadow of removed soutaches on faded tropical field caps and occasionally find unissued ones with the remnants of removed soutache). while there were many original soutached overseas caps from the seventies find, the ones you see today were squirrelled away from that same find and only recently surfaced in California. I believe most of them are genuine.

Agree with this completely. And it was a supply nightmare

Roughly one third of the caps found were damaged, another third had original soutache applied in the factory which were scarce until recently when more have surfaced. The other third did not have a soutache originally yet many of these do nowadays....there were also some un-issued M40's too

Do a search on the Beehive find or cache and you will find more interesting stories on these...

Cap is an original, hard to tell from the photos if this one has been "upgraded".

[W.Unland]

Agree with this completely. And it was a supply nightmare

Roughly one third of the caps found were damaged, another third had original soutache applied in the factory which were scarce until recently when more have surfaced. The other third did not have a soutache originally yet many of these do nowadays....there were also some un-issued M40's too

Do a search on the Beehive find or cache and you will find more interesting stories on these...

Cap is an original, hard to tell from the photos if this one has been "upgraded".

Really?

So back in the 70's the caps with satouche were held back because someone knew they would be 2K someday? Really? I saw no satouched caps for sale back then. I am not saying you are wrong, I don't know, but I find it incredibly hard to believe that only the plain caps were sold originally and all these beautifully embellished caps have only recently found their way to the market. Dealers were in it for money back then too and a cap with satouche was more valuable. If you want to believe that these were held back for 40 years that's cool.

Oh, just one question which I mentioned before, what happened to the hundreds of plain caps. I don't see any for sale any more, only caps with rare satouche, with some dealers offering dozens. I guess guys are sitting on those plain caps these days.

As the saying goes, I have no dog in this fight. I don't collect these and don't have any for sale. I am only mentioning what I saw back in they day which doesn't square with today. Same with SS stuff. Very rare in the 70's, now everywhere.

Reproducers have been hard at it since the 50's. And yet hundreds of these caps with satouche were recovered back then but only sold in the last few years?
W. Unland

[Tim O'Keefe]

Depends on which maker you are referring to. From the original group, the Weissbach, and Clemans Wagner and some LAGO sidecaps, almost all had original soutache factory applied. Most of the Hans Brandts did not. However a few did.

And yes the cream was held back to be sold later. (2k sounds like a dealers dream though) A few being sold every so often. Then recently larger numbers have become available. Again talking of the Weissbach's & CW etc.

My feeling on the Brandts with soutache, is that most (but not all) have been added postwar & should be carefully examined. There are still quite a few Brandt's around without soutache, i bought one back in 1989 for $150. They turn up for sale from time to time around $400.