To remove fake collar tress or not?

[Seigfried]

I bought a M36 tunic off the WAF a few years ago - I black light tested it and the tress stitching glowed. As I knew that this was not a definite sign of post-war stitching it didn't really bother me as it's a nice tunic anyway for a good price. Just lately though I saw a thread which highlighted the difference between WH and DDR collar tress, with the latter having more elongated diamonds than the former so I am now convinced that the collar tress has been added sometime after the war.

The questions are - should I carefully unpick it, and if so, should I then add the correct period tress to cover the holes??

The tunic has pre-war pointed oberfeldwebel shoulder straps with the correct tress, and a SNCO quality breast eagle so the NCO tress would not look out of place IMO.

[Seigfried]

This is the best pic I have at the moment - it doesn't show much but at least you can see the tunic!

[Paul McKee]

Nice looking display!

If you re-read that thread about elongated diamonds, the simple premise is despite conventional collector wisdom, not all elongated diamonds are post-war.

Don't rush into stripping this tunic just yet! Show some good closeups of the collar tress for comparison.

Paul

[Seigfried]

Nice looking display!

If you re-read that thread about elongated diamonds, the simple premise is despite conventional collector wisdom, that not all elongated diamonds are post-war.

Don't rush into stripping this tunic just yet! Show some good closeups of the collar tress for comparison.

Paul

Thanks Paul,
I'm not back home for a couple of weeks so will post some close ups then Don't worry, I won't rush into anything!

[DonC]

John, I would second what Paul said - post some close-ups - there were far more than just one or two styles of tresse between 1933 and 1941!

Don

[Daniele C]

Can i see a period elongated diamond tresse?i ve seen about 3-4 styles of tresse(mouse grey style included)

[CWP]

Here are some photos I have posted with different styles of tresse:

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...d.php?t=191218

[Seigfried]

Well here are the photos at last - the UV one is the best I can do! I've included a few shots of the underside of the collar too.

[Seigfried]

2

[Seigfried]

3

[Seigfried]

4. There is no UV visible beneath the collar

[Seigfried]

5

[Seigfried]

TTT with pics

[CWP]

I'm not sure about that tresse. The edges look very wide to me. There were many varieties of treese used before 1945. I am not familiar with this type as an original or postwar type. My advice would be to leave it on.

[DonC]

I am not any kind of expert on tresse, as I've owned maybe three NCO tunics in my life, but I would leave it alone - it does NOT look like E. German tresse to me. If you were to remove it there's always the chance that you m,ight do more harm than good.

Don