Arty officers cap, good, bad??

[DonC]

It's not that they are "bad", it's just that they are all post war!

Don

[AZartman]

It's not that they are "bad", it's just that they are all post war!

Don

Thanks NTZ and Don C. I meant post war not "bad" as apparently their quality is high. I have a lead on several, and maybe I'll pick them up if they are cheap.

[NTZ]

Thanks NTZ and Don C. I meant post war not "bad" as apparently their quality is high. I have a lead on several, and maybe I'll pick them up if they are cheap.

Sorry to bring this thread back from the dead but I just got back from vacation. If you pick up the Alteste's please post them. I love to have more reference photos.

[Donald Abenheim]

Wilhelmstrasse and vanished figures....

Such caps were commissioned by a well known American, an ex-Army officer, famous for certain aspects of German regalia. To be sure, this particular address on the Wilhelmstrasse was occuppied by one of the leading government ministries, in a Prussian nobleman's palace of great status and rank. It was illegal in the FRG of the time to employ the names of actual firms, ergo this logo has merely the appelation: Berlin's oldest cap factory. To be sure, the cap factories, such as they were, stood in the eastern portion of Mitte (Lubstein & Schellenberg...), or to the west in Moabit (also Lubstein earlier...), but not smack dab in the middle of the government district. The Berlin garment district, as it were, was surely not in the center of power. These old fake caps also have somewhat low crowns, in fact, and were surely made of authentic fabric, at least the cap cover. This kind of trikot is typical. These caps do not attain the standard of manufacture of better types of their kind. There were better still when I started out, and they had sweat shields devoid of any maker, but most often the same sweat shields were also plastic as is the case of this piece here. I have seen faux Kupper caps which were better than this piece, save they were devoid of batting, watting, i.e. stuffing to give them shape and heft. I have also seen caps of thise sort that were proto-Frankensteins, where a fake cap had a real liner inserted, but these were few and far betweeen in the beginning era, i.e. mid-1960s. Sapere aude. When ebay was a free place, the Berlins aelteste Muetzenfabrik caps appeared almost weekly, in fact.

[Lignemaginot]

Here's another Alteste for you - in this case, I was fortunate that the SS eagle and first mdoel TK were, in fact, original.

[Lignemaginot]

Interior

[NTZ]

Thanks for the photos Clive. I am interested to see if these Alteste’s were made with anything other than the gray linings. The sweatbands I have seen from what looks like a period sweatband to the obvious. So far I have only seen the gray lining used though. IMO some of the later Latvians are better. I guess I like to keep a good file on fakes because I would hate to pass on a good visor that is a bit out of the norm. So far I haven’t seen a real good one yet but the unscrupulous are getting better.

Donald, you are as informative as always. Was that U.S. officer’s initials G.P. by chance? What reason would he have to commission fakes unless…..

[Donald Abenheim]

ich schweige

These caps also had black insides, in some cases, actually. Watch the "Great Escape" anno 1963 and they are visible, as well, together with authentic stuff from Breuer/Muenchen. Sometimes the sweat bands of these old fakes were cut from authentic caps and resewn. I shall remain silent on the identity of the man in question, however your swag is in error. The personality who commissioned the fakes did so to make money, plainly. He was a pioneer, and followed by many others, now legion and far more sophisticated and cunning, by 500%. The more things change, the more they remain the same.....