Erel Crusher Cap comments anyone?

[charliefass]

Color of Piping Looks original to me

Clearly a cap that's piping has been likely dyed with a felt-tip marker or other poor attempt at dying it. I have never seen fading anywhere near the this splotchy mess typical of felt markers. The hat looks like it was hardly used and looking at the piping in back under the crown appears (?) to show the same pattern in an area that would hardly fade.

Your comment made me wonder. It has been a few days since I have taken this cap down off the shelf and looked at it up close. Well, I just looked at it and took a closer look at the piping on the crown and the cap band. I pulled the material back away from the piping as far as I could without chancing spliting the sewn seam. I did this in several areas on the cap and came to the same conclusion: The color is original to the cap. The "splotchy" look goes right down to and beyond the stitiching which holds the piping to the cap. A felt-tip marker could not have done this unless the cap had been completely disassembles and then put together again. This, of course, did not happen. The conclusion, therefore, is that this is not white piping which has been colored by the original owner or collector. It is either faded or degraded with time. This is a beautiful cap and in the best condition I could imagine seeing. Your comments or disagreements are welcome.........

[Kurt]

charliefass,

thanks for the additional info. I guess it is all possible depending on what material was available in the Lubstein factory. Maybe they were out of blue and used inferior dyes. Since you obviously know where to look, can you check the area where the piping is sewn together. If the thread holding it is blue, then you know this was built as crusher with blue piping.

Kurt

[charliefass]

Blue piping thread

Here is as good a picture as I can manage to show the thread which connects the piping. Due to the lighting, the picture does not show the detail as good as seeing it first hand, but the thread connecting the piping is definetly blue.

Thanks for pointing out that detail. I don't think I would have thought of that myself. So apparently, the dye used by Erel just faded with time.

[charliefass]

Piping certainly looks to have been dyed, and not that well.

Bob Shoaf

Hi Bob.....check the previous post.......when I pull the fabric back away from the piping, the fading is the same deep past the stitching. Also the thread holding the ends of the piping together is pure blue. It is difficult to get a good picture of this, but this all would point to any "dying" would have been done in the factory when the cap was manufactured. The color most likely looked real good in the 1940s, but age has taken its toll.