Beehive found

[WW2_History95]

Hey Guys,

I've heard about "the famous beehive found" with al the sidecaps used as isolation.
Does anyone have more onformation ? Because it's very interesting.
And do there exist any pictures of that find ?

Regards,
Yannick

[Tim O'Keefe]

Hi Yannick

This thread covers it pretty well. & how greed has ruined many of them The CW's and Weissbach's & LAGO's are still safe, unless dated later than Aug '42. As are the non soutached Hans Brandt & CW sidecaps dated Aug '42 and later.

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...hlight=beehive

Welcome to tropical collecting

[90th Light]

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.

Chris

[whatthecrunchyo]

Here's my CW size 53 that I got a few months ago!

[whatthecrunchyo]

A few more.

[whatthecrunchyo]

My cap came from a bundle of 5 (can't remember exact number; think it was 5) that were bound by twine, all marked the same.

[WW2_History95]

Hey Tim,
Thanks for the thread link, it's very interesting.
Now I know more about it.
Thanks, tropical is a special direction in my eyes.

Hey Chris,
Thanks for the quote,
Now I know more about the origin of this discovery.

Hey whatthecrunchyo,
Thanks for the pics.
These caps are really in a stone mint condition.

Were these caps originally produced for the Afrika theatre ?
Or also for other tropical areas ?

Regards,
Yannick