Nice Panzer tunic, trousers and sidecap

[Reggu]

wow what a find! looking forward to se the restoration result, interesting with what looks like copper brown waffenfarbe!

[me6_130]

No expert but it also looks good to me. Copper brown soutache? Really difficult to cmplete

Carles

[afrikasandman]

Truly awesome! Copper brown to boot, hard times to find a matched set of boards though. Only ever seen a few black ps recon singles ever and not a matched pair. I'd still be up for the challenge though to complete that tunic. Great to see items like this that are one lookers in my opinion. Matt

[naxos]

I ...

The group belong together, all items marked "Sch." by the soldier, his name is written at the Arbeits-and Liederbuch...

I have to restore the insignia, but at least they are original to the sidecap!

the name of the wearer is: Anton Schobel

.

[90th Light]

Wow, what a find

Apart from the panzer sidecap that I picked up with copper-brown (recon) soutache. I have never ever seen another original that I trusted. Your one is thus the second original that I have ever seen.

Here are a couple of images of my cap. The soutache on both caps appears to be made from the early type with a lot of cotton in it. The eagles and cockades appear to be the same type too.

Amazing to say the least and thank you for posting,

Chris

[don_kihotis7]

Wow buddy, you scored again.
Thanks for showing this super set

[me6_130]

From what to what date was the copper brown used for Recce units?

Carles

[90th Light]

From what to what date was the copper brown used for Recce units?

Carles

Here is one of the best overviews on the subject that is posted on WAF. It was written by Dal McGuirk after many years of study in regard to this question;



"Aufklärings-Abteilungen"

"There is also some confusion in collector circles regarding the use of gold yellow and copper brown (and pink) by the reconnaissance units (Aufklärungs-abteilungen) from 1940 to 1942/43. In the period we are discussing, 1940-1941, gold yellow was being replaced by copper brown. The simple facts are that there was no single changeover date for colours worn by troops in the field, or for that matter when the various firms manufacturing field caps and tunics with shoulder straps changed from one colour to another colour that was officially replacing it. These changes happened over a period of time, and often factories changed only when stocks of one colour may have been used up. The factories might not even have received their supplies of the new soutache or shoulder strap piping colours. Hence, the factories continued production using a colour that may have been on the verge of being officially superseded. A cap I saw for the first time last year, a 1942 dated field cap with copper brown soutache (maker Carl Halfar), is a prime example of this situation. Copper brown was meant to have been superseded by pink in 1942 for armoured reconnaissance units. Apparently nobody instructed the Halfar factory to stop making caps with copper brown soutache in 1942. There is no magic key we can use to apply here to understand in a black and white sense what was not a rigidly enforced system of colour allocation in the field.

As with the two shades of green Waffenfarbe, the older light green and the newer lime green, the two Aufklärungs-abteilungen serving in Africa in 1941 wore both gold yellow and copper brown, at the same time. My Gustav Thomas cap with its gold yellow soutache has a 1940 date. Thus it would have been made for issue to 3rdPanzer Division. Sadly I have no information on this cap’s origins. I do not know where and when it may have been picked up as a souvenir, and which unit may have worn it.

Many collectors take one list of Waffenfarben without understanding that it cannot be perfectly applied retrospectively or transposed to the future as a universal system for interpreting the use of arm of service piping used by the Wehrmacht. Too often we take a list of arm of service colours and try to make it apply to any number of periods, both before and after the time that list was composed and published. It will not fit such a neat paradigm.

Regarding copper brown I can definitely state it was in use with AA3 in 1941. (I have read some opinion that disputes this fact.) I have a cap with copper brown soutache (an undated or 1940 Schebeler) with the owner's name and his unit “3” on an embroidered name tape stitched to the lining. Being manufactured in 1940 would indicate this cap was also originally intended for use by 3rdPanzer Division, i.e. by AA3. The cap was picked up by a NZ officer at El Adem in early December 1941. I own five shoulder straps with copper brown piping (including two fitted to a tunic) that were picked up by NZ soldiers at Gambut Airfield on the morning of 23rd November after NZ 4th Brigade troops overran the lager AA3 had occupied overnight. Interestingly I also own a German overcoat picked up from inside a tent at Gambut on that morning which has had its sew in gold yellow officer piped shoulder boards cut off but leaving tufts of gold yellow woolen material behind on the seam. (I strongly suspect this desecration occurred postwar back in NZ with the culprits being the old soldier’s young children armed with a pair of scissors.)

It is my impression from reliable source- attributed souvenired insignia I have seen that in 1941 AA33 in 15.Pz-Div also used a combination of copper brown and gold yellow piped shoulder straps and field caps, as was the case with AA3.

For what it is worth I can say in all the years I have collected DAK material I have not seen or heard of an officer shoulder board in copper-brown that originated in North Africa. However I would say they existed, even though I have not seen one. It is likely that in 1941 all or nearly all officers serving both in AA3 and AA33 wore the gold piped yellow (or pink*) piped shoulder boards they would have transferred from their Continental uniforms.

* Pink-piped officer shoulder boards bearing a gilt metal Gothic “A” and the numeral “3” were souvenired by NZ soldiers when they captured Bardia in late January 1942."



You can read more here; http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...&highlight=Dal

Chris

[m-e-h-t]

thanks a lot for posting this really interesting explanation !!