KRIEGSMARINE CAP TALLEY - Mützenband "Kriegsmarine"

[preclik]

Good day all,
can you tell me is this talley original?

[Mike Kenny]

Hi preclik,

It appears to me to be a genuine example in cotton thread.

I'm going to move this to the insignia forum later - for better response.

Regards
Mike

[Nick VR]

Looks good...

[Hirschstein]

later 19030's early 1940's thread brighter gold the older metallic threads faded to easily while on ship to sea the reason for the brighter holding thread replacements. My 5 tallies all are metallic, 3 of them have turned to a nice light copper tone, two of them including Linienschiff Schlesien have darkened due to fading but are still unique nonetheless.

Erich ~

[John R.]

It is cotton. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between the artificial cotton, called cellon, and cotton, however, this one looks like cotton to me.

The sequence of muetzenbander/cap tallies was cotton then cellon for issue tallies. Sailors were issued first cotton, then later cellon, for the unit to which they were assigned. At their own expense, they could purchase the gold wire tallies and most did.

At the start of the war, all tallies were supposed to say "kriegsmarine" a security measure. The same happened in the US and UK navies. Prior to the war, the cap tallies had the name of the unit on the tally, although even after the war started, many units, like the destroyers, kept wearing their named tallies until replaced with "kriegsmarine" and I believe some shore units might have still have named tallies issued after the war started since they were not a security issue.

As I mentioned above, the gold wire was private purchase and since it looked a bit better, most sailors wore the gold wire on their caps. You did not have to be on the unit/ship to buy the gold wire tally, you just needed to be in kriegsmarine and you could buy any tally you wanted, but to get the cotton/cellon tallies you needed to be in the unit as it was an issue item.

Full length tallies should be around 150-155 cms, but regulations and wear resulted in many being much shorter, say to collar length, not the sweeping tallies over the shoulder that the sailors liked to wear for studio portraits.

Some collectors prefer the cotton types to gold wire since they were issue, but in my opinion it is not a major factor in cap tally value.

Hope this helps. John

[preclik]

Thanks all very much ....

[Hirschstein]

interesting John as a KM vet friend who wore two different Kriegsmarine tallies told me the gilt wire faded due to the sea air and ulta-violets while at Sea - reason to go with the brighter almost gold-yellow Cellon to cotton thread later even into 1943 manufacture for the KM title

thanks for the additional info as I had similar info but buried in the masses of documentation

E ~

[John R.]

interesting John as a KM vet friend who wore two different Kriegsmarine tallies told me the gilt wire faded due to the sea air and ulta-violets while at Sea - reason to go with the brighter almost gold-yellow Cellon to cotton thread later even into 1943 manufacture for the KM title

thanks for the additional info as I had similar info but buried in the masses of documentation

E ~

Well, the war was a long time ago for a veteran to remember these little details. I think this applies to many of the items we collect, like badges. I really do not think a veteran would have cared if he had a tombak badge or zinc or a particular maker even if he knew all the different types.

Back to the tally, the gold wire did tarnish, turn green, etc. Most sailors if not all owned the metallic type thread tally in addition to the cotton. Maybe as the gold wire tally turned green, it went from a shore rig outfit to his working rig, but as the war went on, this not so popular "flat hat" was usually relegated to only dress occasions so not worn that often I think. Take a look at the Bismarck or Tirpitz sailor at their battle stations--none are wearing this style flat hat, they are wearing a campaign style fore and aft cap. Same with U-boats.

The US Navy had a flat hat and nobody wanted to wear it--mainly since it took up precious locker space compared to the white "dixie cup" style favored by US sailors which could be rolled up. It finally was removed from the kit in 1962 or so.

Remember, there are other reasons, including the stiffness of the tally itself, that made the gold wire tally more popular than the cotton. The cotton tally in hand is very light in weight and fragile. Far more fragile than the gold wire black ribbon material and easily torn. To support the gold wire letters, the black ribbon had to be more robust in construction.

The gold wire was never issued only the cotton/cellon.

The timeline was cotton to cellon, not cellon to cotton. Cellon did have a brighter thread than the cotton tallies.

John

[Hirschstein]

John I understand your statements, my friend was stationed on Sea then to a Flak unit out of Kiel then to Sea and then to Danzig and finally to the terrible battles in the gulf of Finland and back along the Baltic Coast to Hela and capture by the Russians