WH and LW Generals Visor Pricing?

[BaselA]

A question to those with experience is collecting general officer items - what should one expect to pay for LW and WH generals visors these days?

[stonemint]

Basel, that is a loaded question--too many variables (ie, condition, maker, quality, etc). There are General hats collecting dust on almost every dealer website of late, so the demand that was there in 2007 is not in 2013....

[BaselA]

Stoney, I sort of wanted it to be a loaded question haha

Most of the generals visors I have seen over the past year have been Erels...so lets assume Erel in average condition, original insignia, not named.

Winkler sold a Wm. Welhausen for under 5,000€, and it sat there for months.

[stonemint]

Stoney, I sort of wanted it to be a loaded question haha

Most of the generals visors I have seen over the past year have been Erels...so lets assume Erel in average condition, original insignia, not named.

Winkler sold a Wm. Welhausen for under 5,000€, and it sat there for months.

I forgot to add one more variable--the dealer!

[Koguryo9]

Stoney, I sort of wanted it to be a loaded question haha

Most of the generals visors I have seen over the past year have been Erels...so lets assume Erel in average condition, original insignia, not named.

Winkler sold a Wm. Welhausen for under 5,000€, and it sat there for months.

I will take a stab, I'd say anywhere between $8,000 to $15,000.

[stonemint]

One thing about TR General/Admiral hats is that rarity does not=price.

When you break it down, the rarity scale is as follows (from common to least common):

1. Heer
2. Luftwaffe
3. SS
4. KM Admiral

But in terms of price, it appears to go as follows:

1. SS
2. LW
3. KM
4. Heer

Just my .02 cents. I am sure others have differing opinions.

[billbert]

DITTO on the last 2 posts...Billbert

[afrikasandman]

It's an expensive area to collect and let's be honest the desire of many to spend 8-15k for something that is going to be a tough sell isn't appealing. I like the general caps and what not but I can't justify the prices people are asking for them. Hell I can't justify the price of heer trop officer m40 caps either and they are in the se boat price wise. It's really a matter of what people want to spend their money on and right now it seems TR items are way down on the priority scale for many. Plus you could have say 5 or 6 really nice officer/nco visors for the cost of say 1 heer visor. Ill never have one unless I pull one out of the woodwork and dealers refuse to see that the value isn't there anymore and would rather keep their traveling museums than make sales. That's just my opinion though. Matt

[stonemint]

...& as I have said before, the only true way to establish "what's it worth" is by auction with a starting bid of $9.99.

Many hats that sell on dealer's sites sell for nowhere near what their asking price is.

(However, there are plenty of dealers who do not want to "deal", and that is why their inventory languishes.....)

Just my .03 cents....

[afrikasandman]

I do agree that the prices items sell for are rarely the asking price. Matt

[BrianK]

Rarity has almost nothing to do with it - it's all in the demand. For example look at Railway caps which are IMO harder to find than SS caps. Almost no demand for railway and crazy demand for SS. If they didn't have SS stuff to sell for high prices IMO most dealers would be out of business. Just look at TR dealers websites. They are all in the TR business bunkers and surrounding themselves with SS stuff for sale to keep the wolf from the door.

[BaselA]

Thanks to all for their input and advice - a lot of sense spoken here.

[Adam S.]

Excellent thread.

I bought a high end repro general visor to display on my original generals tunic. Can't justify the cost.