Kriegsmarine/Reichsmarine/Imperial/Bundesmarine Cap Tallies

[John R.]

Cellon tally reverse.

[John R.]

Cotton tally (artificial silk) reverse

I will continue to use the word cotton while Markus has identified the material as artificial silk to mean the same thing. References to date refer to the material as cotton and we have used cotton to describe this material for so long, it is confusing to suddenly change that description to something else.

However, both words should be understood to mean the same type of tally for the purposes of this discussion.

John

[CSForrester]

Very god pics to compare the way of production. It would be worth to show an official tally with metal thread letters and one with cotton letters in one pic side by side. They were produced on the same machine using the same set of punched cardboards. They have on the obverse a "shadow" above and below the letters and the letters are very plain, hard to feel if you glide with a fingertip over the ribbon.
The inofficial were produced on other machines with several sets of punched cardbords and the lettes are rised on the obverse, the "shadows" are missing.

Regards
Markus

[CSForrester]

Perhaps here it is better to see:

1.cotton:

[CSForrester]

2. metal:

[Hirschstein]

Gentlemen even when compared side by side Metall to the cotton are we not going to see a more brassyness or possible greenish tone to the metall that will tell us the thread is metall ?

thanks Markus for those close-ups to discern at close hand

[John R.]

Yes, there will be no doubt in your mind, especially from the reverse. John

[CSForrester]

"Kom.." ist cotton, "..halb.." is metal. The "..halb.." was oxydized and cleaned by someone, so it is not the original mint colour. What i want is to show a significant point of the official ordered tallies. If John turns his Cellon-tallie shown above, we will see no "shadow".

Regards
Markus

[John R.]

Please remember that many tallies were washed, either by the sailor, or post war by collectors. Not a big deal to me, but they were.

As I have mentioned before, washing tallies today, say tallies that are heavily soiled, is best done by an expert with a lot of experience or you will ruin the tally. Not only the metal ones, but the cellon and cotton one.

Why are they washed? Mainly for dirt but also due to wrinkles. So if you try to wet a tally for example and iron it, you will probably ruin the tally. It will turn the ribbon shiny.

Best leave them alone. I only want to make the point that the tallies got wet either during wear on the ship or were washed wartime or post war. Explains a lot of different looks in tallies that are period.

John

[John R.]

Cellon obverse. No dots like in the obvious case of cotton and less obvious case of metal. Again, you need to check the reverse to make sure.

[CSForrester]

The timeline continued until 1956. The first lot of tallies delivered to the new Federal German Navy was produced obviously on the same machine with the same fingerprints ...... but only the first lot. Next tallies deliered have an other code on the punched cardboards and an other system of returning the yellow cotton thread.
This is the sealed talliy from Bundesamt für Wehrtechnik in Koblenz, the oldest in my collection, since is sold my complete collection pre-1945 about 10 years ago.
The first Marineschule Mürwik and Segelschulschiff Gorch Fock from 1956 show in fact no difference to those before 1939 if they were worn and aged.

Regards
Markus

[CSForrester]

....

[Norm F]

Marine Lehrkomapanie

Very interesting photo there. Do I understand correctly that these 3 talleys of "Marine Lehrkompanie" are all Bundesmarine? The top is an early official sample in artificial silk, below that a metallfaden one in Fraktur and finally a newer one in modern script on the bottom?
But is that middle one which looks metal really an official one - i.e. did they go back to metal thread for a while, or is that a private purchase item again?
Regards,
---Norm

[JustinG]

I wish to post this as a point of caution to fellow members. I do not mean to slander. Be cautious of this seller, they have many high end reproduction tallies available.
antikwarenversand on ebay.de.

Please use caution as I don't want anyone to purchase one of these items and be burned. They are at least offered at a decent price so not to be burned too bad.

Regards,
JustinG

[JustinG]

Shot of reverse. Note that the threads are not like John Robinson's Blucher Close-up thread pattern. This one is a tricky but none the less, a reproduction.