Luftwaffe Tropical Shirts

[DJT]

Recently while attending the Beltring War and Peace show in England I came accross an abundance of Luftwaffe Tropical Shirts for sale. I must have seen about 10 or so for sale from various dealers/sellers!?. I`ve also seen quite a few for sale online.
I would have thought these to be quite rare yet they seem to be popping up everywhere lately?

Is it the old cliched story of an unissued supply of them being found in an warehouse out east or are some unscruplous people just getting any old tan coloured shirt and sewing on a Luftwaffe tropical eagle

OR are they 100% genuine and just alot more common than I had believed?

Anyone any thoughts on this?

Regards

Des

[Bob Hritz]

When I was in Paris, there were dozens of these Luft tropical shirts. The story was an old storeage was found by Pierre Caravano, who travels all over europe digging for old makers, warehouses and has much success. I was offered a number of the shirts with rodent damage, but only bought one in near mint condition. I don't know what the truth is, but I certainly couldn't pass one up at a cheap price. The eagle compares favorably with a used one I have and the buttons and material look old. I was hoping someone else would have the whole story on this lot of shirts. It would seem to be a lot of work for very little money, if they are fakes.
Bob Hritz

[DJT]

Bob,

Well I suppose if I had`nt seen so many of them on offer lately I`d be just like you and try and buy one for the right price but i dunno. I get nervous if I see a particular item popping up alot that previously was deemed scarce. Actually maybe some of the older collectors can help out on this topic and let us know if they recall seeing many of these Luft tropical shirts in the 70`s or earlier? If not then I`d be even more sceptical of their originality. Thats not to say yours or any of the ones I`ve seen are bad. I`m just curious as to how so many are suddenly surfacing. Theres one for sale at the Ruptured Duck right now and it looks quite good but the price..
Bills description says and I quote "Very desirable item as not a great number of these survived." which kinda backs up my previous belief. hmmmm

Regards

Des

[DJT]

<a href="http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1181555442"> One Currently on Ebay

</a>

[Ralph Heinz]

Gentlemen,

While I own one salty original made at Litzmannstadt, I've photographed a repro that was awfully good. The owner, a serious LW collector bought it for the going price of $75 for a new repro and his comment was that if it had an original tropical LW shirt breast eagle sewn to it (not hard to find) and if it were washed a number of times, it would be darn hard to tell from an original. He was right.

This may have nothing to do with the ones you've seen but the LW collector noted above told me he'd seen a number of these shirts in a major US catalog auction house over recent years and the eagles were repros and presumably so were the shirts.

There are several sites on the Internet where you can buy a nice repro for $75 so it pays to be really careful on this item. We are all paranoid on the subject of fakes but this may be one item where real scrutiny is advised.

[DJT]

Ralph,

Any chance you could post a photo of that repro?

Regards

Des