dak shoulder straps panzer jager...

[NORDSUDETEN]

Hello all
Please you opinion?
Thanks.
BR.

[NORDSUDETEN]

D

[OSS]

[msteve21]

Nice

Be good to see the straps fully laid out on both sides

MSteve

[pauke]

straps

I agree, images of the undersides are needed. These could have been worn by a tank crewman, Pz. Jaeger or infantryman or even a truck driver. A friend who was an infantryman in Africa wore pink piping and I have two pairs of the straps he wore, both pink piped.

[Tim O'Keefe]

Straps might be ok. Need to be seen unfolded, both sides. Not only Pz/PzJg & Inf wore pink even cooks. The DAK 3rd Recon Bn were issued rosa upon arrival to Afrika except for a very few that wore gold piped straps.

& pauke which unit did he serve in ?

[drempfer]

Nothing alarms me, but the gentlemen who've already weighed in have a bit more experience than I. Let's see some new pictures with them laid out flat.

[NORDSUDETEN]

From telephone.

[NORDSUDETEN]

Sb

[90th Light]

I think the lack of replies is a good sign in this case.

Based on those images, they look to be good ones and a nice original pair

Chris

[Hptm. Fuhrmann]

Yes, look like good originals, no problem with them. Only they are not a pair, they are 2 completely different pink piped straps that somehow ended up together.

[OSS]

It is true that the two straps are not identical; the upper materials are not the same and the wool backings are different as well. There are subtle differences in the button holes. They may, nevertheless, have been made at the same factory and very likely were worn as a pair.

[90th Light]

It is true that the two straps are not identical; the upper materials are not the same and the wool backings are different as well. There are subtle differences in the button holes. They may, nevertheless, have been made at the same factory and very likely were worn as a pair.

Absolutely correct,

This matched, worn pair of tropical shoulder straps that I have just received are made from 4 different shades of Twill. The two top pieces of top Twill are a slightly different shade from each other, as are the top pieces of the tongue

Pairs like this are really interesting because you get a range of the different Twill used,

It was a war, the Germans wasted nothing and not everything was perfect to win medals at a Milan fashion show. By 1942 in Afrika, you took what you could get,

Chris

[90th Light]

The two straps which started this thread are made by the same maker. You can tell that by the piping, button holes, sewing, cut-out pattern and the shape.

And I think I know what happened, The M44 signal straps shown in the comparison picture below came from a box that a collector here in NZ picked up. It was a whole box of M44 signal straps with at least three different sizes.

He was just pulling out two straps at a time roughly the same size and selling them like that. I asked to buy some and was allowed to go through what he had left to match them up. I matched up 5 exactly the same pairs. Same field grey cloth, same size, same coloured thread.

Now that took time. Had this been the war and I was quarter master in a hurry. Then I might not have worried about an exact match between the slightly different shades of field grey.

I think that we as collectors have always assumed that a pair of shoulder straps left the factory tied together as an exactly matching pair. But has that ever been proved ?

There were no tied together pairs in the box I saw. The straps were probably placed together as matching pairs into the box at the factory. However, over time time as different sized straps were pulled out to be issued, some of the pairs become muddled in terms of exactly matching cloth.

There might also have been the odd non-matching pair in the box when it left the factory i.e. the last single from and off-cut paired up with another last single from another off-cut. Plus the off-cuts of material were simply placed into a factory bin and pulled out in random order to maintain the speed of production as the straps were being made.

That is what I firmly believe has happen with the tropical boards shown on this thread. They were issued to the German soldiers like that by the quartermaster stores,

Chris