Lets take a look at this grouping

[Johnnie]

Maybe because I'm still on the learning curve on this subject that I personally keep focusing on the EKI Spange loops on two of the tunics.
Why would this RKT have two tunics with Spange loops, when it is obvious he wasn't even alive in the First War.
If these tunics were his the loops must have been added at a later date when he was no longer in possesion of them. But why? And by who?
Can anyone venture an even wild guess on this?

Johnnie

[Mike C]

Is it possible that the small set of loops is for a golden party badge above the EK I? I have seen this combination on occasion however the loops do seem too close set for this combination.

Mike

[DonC]

Is it possible that the small set of loops is for a golden party badge above the EK I? I have seen this combination on occasion however the loops do seem too close set for this combination.

Mike

Mike, I had wondered the same thing, but to me at least one looks like it doesn't belong - too thick compared to the other loops. I suspect post-war applied.

First off, a disclaimer: 1) I have bought from Craig twice and have been very pleased with both transactions. I have no problems with Craig and have enjoyed chatting with him at shows. 2) Nobody's infallible. I don't trust any dealer based on his word, guarantees or descriptions. Whoever first said "Buy the item, not the story" should be considered the patron saint of any form of collecting.

In my analysis, I have no way to tell if the tunics originally belonged to RKT Schneider or not. What I can tell is that at all three have issues that lead me to believe that they have been altered at some point - if we accept that they originally belonged to RKT Schneider.

I think that it is very possible that the boards, tabs and eagle on the piped service tunic have been re-attached. The application looks a little sloppy for what I would expect on what is essentiaslly a class-A tunic. The tabs are not sewn on to specs, either - they should be parallel to the top of the collar. Although I am sure this happened, I never have felt comfortable seeing this on a parade or piped tunic as they tend to be much more "by the book" than field service tunics in my experience. In my opinion, this one was stripped and rebuilt.

The issue of the added award loops on the field service tunic has been beat to death. If it did belong to RKT Schneider, they were added post war. I think the eagle may have been resewn on this tunic, but those things don't bother me - although they do bother some collectors. Many Adlers were removed post-war, which was done under order of the Allied Control Commission in occupied Germany - in other words, they had to.

The Waffenrock looks to have the best chance of being all original, in my opinion. It's a sweet 'rock and looks to meet all specs. And therein lies the problem if it's supposed to be RKT Schneider's - no way the SB cyphers match up with his career trajectory unless I am completely missing something. I would have no problem having this one in my collection as a named tunic (but not necessarily to THAT Schneider).

With regrard to the photo that Dave provided, in my opinion it is not the same tunic, based on the location of the left shoulderboard button. The photo isn't optimal, but I believe that in the photo the button is attached quite a bit to the rear of the shoulder seam, while the tunic in question has the button attached pretty damned near directly over the seam (photo 20 on Craig's site). Also, it appears that the RK is suspended by it's ribbon in the photo and not on a ring device that I can tell. The device could be there, and Schneider used the ribbbon for a sit-down photo - I can't tell.

Now for the neck order attachment device. We always assume as soon as we see something like this that it's for a RK. Every country allied with Germany gave out neck orders to Germans, so even if period there's no guarantee that it was for an RK (unless the tunic is THAT Schneider's) - it could be Italian, Croation, Japanese, Romanian, whatever. I have an Artillery Waffenrock with button attachments for a neck order - if the ribbon still wasn't attached to show it was a Croatian Order of the Crown of King Zvonimir I would have been feverishly trying to ID a RKT for sure. And of course, bottom line, how hard is it to sew on a metal ring?

So in my humble opinion, each of the tunics raises legitimate questions as to untouched originality and ownership, or both.

This is a great thread for anybody who is interested in sort of a forensic analysis of several tunics of different styles in the same branch of service and I would ask that anyone who posts in this thread confines their comments to an analysis of the three tunics and that they do not bring anything else into it.

Don

[NTZ]

Mike, I had wondered the same thing, but to me at least one looks like it doesn't belong - too thick compared to the other loops. I suspect post-war applied.

First off, a disclaimer: 1) I have bought from Craig twice and have been very pleased with both transactions. I have no problems with Craig and have enjoyed chatting with him at shows. 2) Nobody's infallible. I don't trust any dealer based on his word, guarantees or descriptions. Whoever first said "Buy the item, not the story" should be considered the patron saint of any form of collecting.

In my analysis, I have no way to tell if the tunics originally belonged to RKT Schneider or not. What I can tell is that at all three have issues that lead me to believe that they have been altered at some point - if we accept that they originally belonged to RKT Schneider.

I think that it is very possible that the boards, tabs and eagle on the piped service tunic have been re-attached. The application looks a little sloppy for what I would expect on what is essentiaslly a class-A tunic. The tabs are not sewn on to specs, either - they should be parallel to the top of the collar. Although I am sure this happened, I never have felt comfortable seeing this on a parade or piped tunic as they tend to be much more "by the book" than field service tunics in my experience. In my opinion, this one was stripped and rebuilt.

The issue of the added award loops on the field service tunic have been beat to death. If it did belong to RKT Schneider, they were added post war. I think the eagle may have been resewn on this tunic, but those things don't bother me - although they do bother some collectors. Many Adlers were removed post-war, which was done under order of the Allied Control Commission in occupied Germany - in other words, they had to.

The Waffenrock looks to have the best chance of being all original, in my opinion. It's a sweet 'rock and looks to meet all specs. And therein lies the problem if it's supposed to be RKT Schneider's - no way the SB cyphers match up with his career trajectory unless I am completely missing something. I would have no problem having this one in my collection as a named tunic (but not necessarily to THAT Schneider).

With regrard to the photo that Dave provided, in my opinion it is not the same tunic, based on the location of the left shoulderboard button. The photo isn't optimal, but I believe that in the photo the button is attached quite a bit to the rear of the shoulder seam, while the tunic in question has the button attached pretty damned near directly over the seam (photo 20 on Craig's site). Also, it appears that the RK is suspended by it's ribbon in the photo and not on a ring device that I can tell. The device could be there, and Schneider used the ribbbon for a sit-down photo - I can't tell.

Now for the neck order attachment device. We always assume as soon as we see something like this that it's for a RK. Every country allied with Germany gave out neck orders to Germans, so even if period there's no guarantee that it was for an RK (unless the tunic is THAT Schneider's) - it could be Italian, Croation, Japanese, Romanian, whatever. I have an Artillery Waffenrock with button attachments for a neck order - if the ribbon still wasn't attached to show it was a Croatian Order of the Crown of King Zvonimir I would have been feverishly trying to ID a RKT for sure. And of course, bottom line, how hard is it to sew on a metal ring?

So in my humble opinion, each of the tunics raises legitimate questions as to untouched originality and ownership, or both.

This is a great thread for anybody who is interested in sort of a forensic analysis of several tunics of different styles in the same branch of service and I would ask that anyone who posts in this thread confines their comments to an analysis of the three tunics and that they do not bring anything else into it.

Don

My thoughts exactly in every respect. Only you said it much more elegantly.

[Johnny R]

Quedlinburg

If you research the Quedlinburg link it would make this a lot clearer through his records. ie., If he was not from there, was never stationed there-we know only a handful of officers in the small town were wearing pink piping there attached to an anti-tank company under a IR battalion that creates a good chance that the Waffenrock was not his tunic.

[Johnnie]

I have profited greatly from the discussion of this group, both in this thread and the defunct one. I tend to be a bit intense in my learning curve, and I hope that nothing I have posted in either has rubbed anyone the wrong way.
What I see is a "Grouping" with possibly one good tunic, and two that obviously belonged to someone else.
I hope that this discusion has been beneficial from a number of viewpoints to others as well, especially newer collectors.
I will continue to follow it in order to learn more, but my basic questions have certainly been answered.

Best regards to all,

Johnnie

[NTZ]

The rock head still won’t change the description. I guess all the knowledge shown here by us uniform collectors has been trumped by his. My guess is he paid a good penny for this and I have a gut feeling where is came from but boy that is a whole other thread that could easily get shut down.


Thanks to David Kane, I am now able to conclusively identify, via photographs, one of the tunics in the group. Please see the last photo for an analysis of the photograph. Thanks a bunch, Dave! Anyway, originally worn by Rudolf Schneider, who was awarded his Knights Cross with 1./Panzerjäger-Abteilung 342 / 342 on September 4, 1942. Rarely do you get a group that leaves NO speculation as to the attribution of the grouping.

[John Pic]

...

[Mike C]

Well...Craig has one photograph (IMHO debatable at best) and I certainly would not be basing my case on it. I would love to see more photos as well as the RKT's service record.

I mentioned it previously - but a small point of concern (at least to me) is the lack of ostmedaille and EK II ribbons on the service tunic...something more common than the use of a ribbon bar when in the field.

The last point is provenance - if it came from the family or someone who can at least give a sense of the history behind these tunics - I would be very happy to hear it.

Absolutely no axe to grind here - would be delighted to be proven wrong.

Mike

[John Pic]

[Craig Gottlieb]

Greetings from New York. Apologies for the late entry into the fray. Anyway, I have emailed photos of the loops to someone (did it yesterday) and they will hopefully post them today (I can't seem to upload from my slow-as-heck connection at this high-end hotel)! As you will see, something "funky" is going on with the loops, but I'm not quite sure the loops are necessarily reflective of a spange. Anyway, stay tuned.

[Bill D.]

First of all, I "have no horse in this race." I have never dealt with Craig as a buyer or seller. Indeed, I've never met him. I do, however, very much respect his willingness to become involved in this discussion.

I think that all of us who have collected, and particulerly collected uniforms, have often seen oddities and anamolies over many years: things that "weren't done", or things that "shouldn't be that way", were often done. I'm reminded of a helmet in the collection of a freind. It is a double decal: Luftwaffe...and Police ! Crazy. But he has the photo album of the owner, who was a former WW I era aviator who joined the Police, and in the 1930's was assigned to the Luftwaffe to investigate air crashes. The photo album shows him wearing the helmet at various crash sites. But if that helmet "walked into a show", who would believe it?

At the same time, anyone who has been in the hobby more than two weeks has probably seen his fair share of messed with uniforms or assembled groups.

As a long-time uniform collector, the hand-sewn vs. machine-sewn insigna issue doesn't carry much weight with me. I have seen FAR too many "exceptions" to this "rule" over thirty years.

Additionally, sewing judgments in general I find impossible to make without a hands-on inspection.

What is problematic to me personally, at least in terms of identifying all of these tunics to that specific RK recipient, are the loops above the EK I, the "D" cyphers on the boards, and the absence of the additional rank pips, for reasons discussed by others, above. Additionally, I personally don't see the photograph as one that depicts one of the uniforms in the group, again for the reasons cited by others.

One thing that does interest me is the issue of the sizes of the tunics. Craig stated that they were all the same size. It would be pretty difficult, I think, to "put together" a group of tunics, particularly to a Panzer officer, by being lucky enough to find two or three tunics that were of the same size.

If indeed the tunics are all the same sizes, then I am inclined to think that they may well go together, but that they were simply not owned by the RKT identified here. They seem more likely to have belonged to a former WW I officer, a recipient of the EKI, who was a "re-tread", brought back to serve as a staff officer in the late 1930's. The rings for a neck order could well be, as noted above, for one of the many foreign awards that officers of the German Army received in both WW I and WW II.
w
By the ay, has anyone checked the listing of recipients of the Pour le Merite from WW I ? It's a long shot, but you never know !

[NTZ]

Bill I agree with much of what you say including the hand stitching as I have seen it on many good tunics (Waffenrock & piped tunics excluded). I do however disagree on how hard it would be to find 3 tunics (roughly) the same size. If they are exact in every measurement including sleeve length then I would lean more towards what you said but if I were to grab the first 10 tunics in my war room I will bet 7 out of 10 will be (roughly) a size 38 give or take a little. It was just he average and most common size back then.

You do bring up an interesting point and maybe Craig can tell us how detailed his measurements were (if any). My guess is he just looked at them and said “hey they all look to be the same size”. Craig were “exact” measurements taken?

[Lasse Kongo]

Craig after being asked 100 times to address the issues like spange loops, etc has yet to say a single word. He just keeps doging the question. Lets first debunk his claim that the photo is the tunic. Take a look at these points. Also Craigs tunic uses regular tunic buttons for the shoulder boards. The tunic in the pic uses standard board buttons that are much smaller.

___________________

The tunics are not even made from the same type of wool. One is uniform cloth one is ribbed cloth.

Lasse

[Lasse Kongo]

Is it possible that the small set of loops is for a golden party badge above the EK I? I have seen this combination on occasion however the loops do seem too close set for this combination.

Mike

_______________________

I have a hard time beliving a 22 year old where a golden party badge reciptant!

Lasse