Opinions on Schlesien Cap Tally

[Waffenreich]

Thanks again for all of the information flowing regarding this subject. It's definitely been informative. Unfortunately for me the hat has been sold

Best regards!

Bob

[Marine HJ]

cotton vs "Kunstseide"

Norm, John.

Thanks for your replies. The gratefully reposted Tagesbefehl refers to "Kunstseide". Now we have to ask what they addressed as "Kunstseide". I.m.o. these are the ones we call "cellon".
The, what we call, "Baumwolle" so "Cotton" thread tallies should have come in much earlier. Sorry, but this is a tricky one and not my strong topic, I much admit. Nevertheless I wanted to participate in this issue. We should seek advice from Markus and Bernd, they have dug through archives and all available sources for decades. They know for sure.

Rgds

Dani

[John R.]

Hi Dani,

The wording is quite confusing as have been the relevant posts in the long thread pinned at the top.

I think at this point we understand baumwolle to be artificial silk to be cotton to also be kunstseide. Markus was clear in the pinned thread that kunstseide means cotton and that baumwolle was the wrong word. He goes on to state that cotton came in late 1937.

In regards to the small lettered tallies, they seem to me to come in cotton, cellon and gold wire. For sure cotton and either gold wire or cellon also. I will post images of the reverses if necessary.

Markus:

What I see in the obverse and reverse pictures is an original cap ribbon of the Kriegsmarine between 1937 and September 1939. This style of weaving with the fine seam or shadow around the letters is typical was lost in 1956 after changes in weaving technology in Germany.

The yellow letters are woven from artificial silk (some name it "Bauwolle" the official term in the Kriegsmarine was "Kunstseide").

These tallies delivered to the Kriegsmarine before WW2 have an other significant point: they are elastic in length. If you take a full length ribbon with 116-120 cm (more is impossible with Kunstseide) you can expand it minimum 2c in length, but be carefull.

John

[John R.]

Here are three small lettered tally reverses.

[John R.]

2

[John R.]

3

[Marine HJ]

John,

this clarifies everything, I think. Many thanks for posting the three pictures as well.
Never stop learning ...

Rgds

Daniel

[John R.]

I agree Dani. You would think kunstseide would be for cellon, but apparently not. Logically, if Markus says cotton is not correct but artificial silk is, then kunstseide=cotton=artificial silk.

The only way around this is if the KM used kunstseide for cellon as a word and I do not think they did, in other words, they used cellon when they meant cellon.

John

[John R.]

Dani,

How do you call the three tallies above as far as thread?

Leipzig here.

John

[John R.]

2

[John R.]

3

[Norm F]

Hi John,

Those closeups are quite interesting. The Leipzig tally from a distance looked like Cellon but up close turns out also to be Kunstseide/cotton. The longer loops on the top and bottom margins of the letters suggests they used the same program cards for the Jacquard loom that they used for the metal wire versions. In contrast the Linienschiff Schlesian tally you posted has much smaller loops, made from different program cards that took advantage of the increased pliability of the cotton thread to avoid wasting material.

Best regards,
---Norm

[Norm F]

BTW, to get a sense as to how ribbons were woven in the past, here's a nice webpage showing a Jacquard loom in the Berlin Technological Museum set up to weave 18 different ribbons at once. Quite an amazing feat of engineering.

http://www.duke.edu/web/isis/gessler...s/jacquard.htm

Best regards,
---Norm

[John R.]

And the material used in post #41?

[John R.]

What is also interesting about the first two closeups, you can see the thread is not really cotton. It is something else although we call those "cotton" tallies.

John