Who the hell is Carsten Baldes?

[90th Light]

Carsten Baldes is an authority on Imperial German, Austrian and European fight badges. His book on the subject is excellent. He took over Detlev Niemann's web site. As I understand it, a lot of the pickers and guys who got stuff for Detlev now get items for Carsten.

The SS artillery visor which is the subject of this thread was part of a reasonable sized grouping to this SS officer that Carsten purchased and then sold in different lots. There were some very interesting items including awards, documents, uniform/ greatcoat and possibly a belt. All to the one named SS artillery officer.

Carsten appeared to also have a photo album to this officer. When he was selling this visor on his site, he showed a photo or two of the SS artillery officer wearing the visor.

I do not know if he bought it all directly from the family or off a picker but it certainly was the type of grouping that Detlev use to get in the good old days before 2008.

Of course as they say, buy the item not the story but that is the background of how Carsten Baldes became involved in this,

Chris

[stonemint]

Look at the company history timeline at the bottom of this webpage:


http://www.ziegler.de/en/company

[stonemint]

Postwar Ziegler. This may have been a TR visor that was used post-war--hard to tell on these Feuerwehr visors:

[stonemint]

Most Ziegler-marked hats were made by Pekuro and distributed by Ziegler--all the ones that I can recall seeing were fire-related:

[enorepap]

It gets interesting. Thanks Chris 90th Light for your valuable information

1. There was definitely a WSS Obersturmfuhrer der Reserve Kuhel Erich (no. 421071). Of course, we will get more data and biographical information on this individual from more experienced members of the individual research forum, if they intended to help us;
2. An important konvolut him allegedly attributable has been bought and asunder sold by Carsten. It is therefore possible that all or part of it, is currently in the hands of a few wealthy WAF member and then it may re-emerge here by the help of moderators;
3. I say this because originally, as noted by Chris 90th Light, there were in this konvolut some other textiles (uniform / greatcoat and possibly a belt) that would be interesting to see for a comparison with the quality of this visor;
4. We all know that it is not impossible to rebuild a konvolut from scratch. However, the more it is large and variegated (awards, documents, photos), the greater the margin of error.

Being able to see even a part of this paper material would undoubtedly be very useful. In fact, the sharable considerations coming from BenVK and Chris Stonemint are logical and unexceptionable and therefore they needs to be validated by any available means. Also in my opinion it is very strange indeed that a WSS officer does not find better to dress himself than turning to a supplier of civil equipments. But if the photos and the documents are true, then at least we have the confirmation (and not just my words) that Erich Kuhel really existed. Obviously it does not automatically means that this visor is not a clever forgery and, on the contrary, it is really and actually connected with him, but at least we could compared it with some other parts of uniform and we could groped to make a direct evaluation.

Marcello

[enorepap]

Obviously, the last name is Kuehl.

My typo mystake, sorry.

Marcello

[jacquesf]

Looks like a late war constructed visor to me, that would put it way outside the period that colored piping for the ss was authorised. J

[JasonA]

Not a statement that has anything to do with Carsten or anyone else, but I don't know that it matters who the guarantee is from; we all know what they're worth.

J-

[BenVK]

Ziegler is still in business to this day.
They were/are a supplier for fire-fighting equipment.

Makes no sense that they would be selling SS visors

Indeed, makes no sense at all.

All the other Ziegler marked uniforms, caps, helmets, bayonets etc etc that I could find were Feuerwehr releated.

[Ottokoen]

Carsten Baldes

I originally purchased this visor from Carsten, and after sending photo's to another well known collector of SS headgear, questions were raised...I then asked Carsten for clarification in regards my issues, and was informed by him that the insignia was added by the last collector who owned the visor. When I responded that, given the insignia was added by a collector, it amounted to a "put-together" visor and was therefore not original, he cancelled the sale and removed the visor from his website...Its interesting to see it surfacing again on a different website with the same old nonsense story...

[Glenn66]

So he hid the fact that the insignia was added until after you queried it?

[90th Light]

There was a skull collar tab from this SS officers estate sold in Carsten's update just this week. Here is the description;

"Waffen-SS, enlisteds collar tab for 3rd. waffen SS tank-division Totenkopf
Art.: #14821
black cloth with light gray stitched thread, worn and sewn on piece out of the estate from the later "Obersturmführer Erich Kühl, 7./Art.Rgt. SS-Totenkopf-Division", scarce"

The price was Euro 650

Considering some of the other items from this lot are top notch, it makes one wonder how the visor hat was part of it and if it really did ever belong to Obersturmführer Erich Kühl ?

Chris

[viva_giulio]

A cap i would not touch for sure. Not beliavable, external materials highly uncommon for the period of coloured piping. Imo

[Kurt]

Just went to this topic and thought this was pretty funny ...

[BenVK]

Maybe he'll be at the Kassel show. That should be interesting!