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**Paul Carter** · 07-19-2005, 06:33 PM

TK Tab

I would invite any knowledgable feedback on this tab. Anyone who knows me, knows the fact my main collecting interest is the prewar Totenkopfverbande. This tab recently became a duplicate so I am pulling it out of my collection. It originally came from forum member Dave J about 3 years ago. He purchased the tab from Bill Shea a year or so before that. These tabs deviate somewhat from piece to piece because each was handcrafted, but there are certain features that are consistant on them. The piece is a good piece to study the construction of, both front and back. I would be happy to have this piece hand inspected by your favorite expert if you're interested.

**DaveJ** · 07-20-2005, 05:31 AM

This piece came from a small vet group Bill Shea purchased, included were several nice pieces of SS cloth. I still have a AH title from the group and Bill had the other pieces listed on his site a while back.

Dave

**Robin Lumsden** · 07-20-2005, 06:42 AM

The features on the reverse of this badge (black threads along the sides and small tacking stitches holding the four corners together) are good signs which I have seen only on original badges. Very few tabs have these, but all the ones I have seen with this setup have been originals.

**Sonny** · 07-20-2005, 10:50 AM

Hi Curt, I purchased quite a few ss cloth items from Paul Carter and was very satisified with the originality of the cloth and the service that I received from him with transactions. I found him to be a gentleman as far as doing business is concerned. Sonny

**CurtD** · 07-22-2005, 01:34 PM

Originally posted by Sonny

Hi Curt, I purchased quite a few ss cloth items from Paul Carter and was very satisified with the originality of the cloth and the service that I received from him with transactions. I found him to be a gentleman as far as doing business is concerned. Sonny

By no means am I trying to question the integrity of Paul.

After years of study, I am still pretty much clueless on these TK tabs (and extremely frustrated).

The only book I have that shows these to any extent is Angolia's Cloth of the SS. The postage-stamp sized pics (and drawings) in there are of little value when trying to learn how to tell a real TK tab from a fake. However, I don't see an example in there with eyes this narrow.

I would have guessed that this tab was fake just because of the lack of detail in the stitching (compare it to the one on The Collector's Guild -- especially the wrapping around the bones). There are fakes that I would have guessed as real because they had more detail in the stitching (one I posted in the fakes thread).

I have several of Robin's books which have some nice pics of tabs, but they are not a comprehensive study of the majority of SS tabs from the TR (nor were they meant to be).

Thanks to the new Ulric of England books on cufftitles with 1/2 page closeups of fakes vs. real, I now have a decent understanding of cuff titles. But, where does one learn how to tell a good TK tab from a bad one? How does Bill Shea tell the difference if there are no researchable documents? Unless there are detailed pics made in 1945 of every tab that was made to act as a "snapshot" of the legit TR tabs, how can one possibly know for certain when one of these was made?

Going from wartime photos doesn't seem too useful to me because of the lack of detail when blown up. These pics weren't meant to show the tabs, after all.

I hope people like Bill and Bob Hritz are either going to come out with detailed books or they are going to pass this knowledge on to the next generation via apprentices (like some sort of Medieval craftsman). Otherwise, the future generations are lost.

I think an entire book could and should be done on SS runic and TK tabs with 1/2 page closeups comparing real ones to fake ones. If I had a clue, I would try this myself.

**Robin Lumsden** · 07-22-2005, 02:24 PM

CurtD.

You are very right.

There are no 'experts' on these bullion TK tabs.

A lot seems to depend on 'gut feeling' with these, as VERY few can be tracked back to vet finds or the original owners.

With prices being what they are today, it pays the fakers in Asia to be pretty accurate.

**John Pic** · 07-22-2005, 02:58 PM

This is an echo of a post in the past. No one I know was around to collect these in 1944-45 ans do a photo study.How experts like Bob Hritz,Bill Shea and others determine whats real was by experience gathering from veteran purchases,family estates etc. that is the only way to know for sure. But even now we have young collectors with stories debunking vet purchases and family finds so without even much deeper proof we can be stuck paranoid.
I choose not to be because I would die of anxiety never being able to trace every single thing back to a date in time.I am satisfied if an Item meets what I know in my experience to be ok.For instance I often hear that the black light test is not always on target and somethings glowed.I know this to be true I have a spool of period white thread that glows. But my experience with original tunics and insignias is that never ever have I found one that I felt was 100% real that the insignias glowed on. Just my own personal taste.

Some people insist on a certain type of buckram behind every tab, I dont think that only one type was used and thus some good varients are classified as fakes...etc. No one has all the answers only good guessing or gut instinct or they bought it from a Vet/Family and the experience told them it was good.

**Donald Abenheim** · 07-22-2005, 07:17 PM

Es geht um die Stickerei!

Also germane here is looking at LOTS of authentic embroidery of various kinds. The Germans have the word "Fingerspitzengefuehl," which is an unscientific term as can be. However, the feeling of intuituion plays a role as does verifiable empirical analysis. Recall the flap about the SA Stabswache cuff title on the other site some years back. Finally, the Totenkopfverbaende were a little organization prior to 1939, actually. Its endstrength in XII 1938= 9,172...total!!!! (source: SS Statistical Yearbook extracted in Mollo, vol. 4 of 1991) One is speaking here of a quite finite amount of regalia in the best case, most of which likely did not see the light of day in 1947 for various reasons. Hence, of all SS regalia, SSTV material of the era 1936-1939/40 (and that is not very long time period, is it..???) seems to require the most skeptical analysis possible. I mean, did each member have one set of these badges? Did they have two sets? If they had them, how often did they wear them out? This is extra, that is, walking out and parade wear insignia, is it not? How many extra sets were contracted for? They were not cheap in their day, either. This is a somewhat different proposition than the Hoheitszeichen for the breast of say the army in the enlisted version in the hundreds of thousands if not more. Viel Sammlerglueck.

**Robin Lumsden** · 07-23-2005, 05:40 AM

Originally posted by Donald Abenheim

Also germane here is looking at LOTS of authentic embroidery of various kinds. The Germans have the word "Fingerspitzengefuehl," which is an unscientific term as can be. However, the feeling of intuituion plays a role as does verifiable empirical analysis. Recall the flap about the SA Stabswache cuff title on the other site some years back. Finally, the Totenkopfverbaende were a little organization prior to 1939, actually. Its endstrength in XII 1938= 9,172...total!!!! (source: SS Statistical Yearbook extracted in Mollo, vol. 4 of 1991) One is speaking here of a quite finite amount of regalia in the best case, most of which likely did not see the light of day in 1947 for various reasons. Hence, of all SS regalia, SSTV material of the era 1936-1939/40 (and that is not very long time period, is it..???) seems to require the most skeptical analysis possible. I mean, did each member have one set of these badges? Did they have two sets? If they had them, how often did they wear them out? This is extra, that is, walking out and parade wear insignia, is it not? How many extra sets were contracted for? They were not cheap in their day, either. This is a somewhat different proposition than the Hoheitszeichen for the breast of say the army in the enlisted version in the hundreds of thousands if not more. Viel Sammlerglueck.

Donald.

How right you are - as usual. Added to what you say, collectors should remember that:

1. About 80% of all pre-1939 TK men had been killed in battle by 1942. Their pre-war uniforms would have been replaced by that time anyway. I fancy that only a miniscule number would have retained 'dress uniforms' with their families at home under wartime circumstances.

2. The manpower of the TK division was replaced about 3 times over during the war as the division was decimated time and time again in Russia and eastern Europe. Later replacement TK men received the later 'horizontal' skulls.

3. The TK division after 1941 fought only on the eastern front, so very few opportunities arose for US/UK troops to 'vet find' their badges. And I do not think many TK badges would have been picked up from the uniforms of KL personnel as the number of SS men in the camps was surprisingly small. Most camp staff were foreign or other auxiliaries.

QED - pre-war TK stuff is like hens' teeth, and wartime TK stuff is not easily found either.

**Donald Abenheim** · 07-23-2005, 09:16 AM

ganz richtig!

Dear Colleague, thank you for completing my analysis with very valuable insights. I agree 100%. If you read the Beaver book, Himmler wanted to recycle all the black uniforms at home, which did or did not happen to some extent. Colleague Toncar has mentioned that the recycled material, including badges, was kept at the Wirtschaftsbetriebe at Dachau, and maybe some of it fell into the grasping hands of my fellow countrymen in 1945. I wonder if there were any caches of this in Czechia granted the SS infrastructure there, since the Czechs seem to have done a good job of saving things. In any case, colleague Lumsden makes very salient points. The only thing that there is a lot of, in fact, is the collector appetite to secure what is a needle in a haystack of regalia. As to SSTV material I have seen, I have owned two nice pieces. I had one of the brown Schiffchen (white SS Feldmuetze tag & VA 1936) which I stupidly sold, and I owned one of the brown drill jackets, a bit before, and I sold it, too. wie dumm von mir.

**Sonny** · 07-25-2005, 04:28 AM

Curt, your question is a valid one for sure and as John stated has been discussed at length before. What you are asking is, what I believe, the toughest question put to ss cloth collectors
The truth of the matter is that there is no one sure cure for this answer. I would suggest that you visit the Max and SOS for a couple of years and meet the likes of older ss cloth collectors to see what is being offered and what is judged as fake and real. It would also help being able to handle them in person to see how the piping is secured and to use a loop on the bullion thread and to see the various designs of the crossbones.
You will also find what I look for in signs of originality is different from what anther collector looks for. However since most of these were early pre war insignia, as colleague Abenheim has stated, they are to be quite striking at first glance, tight and well defined. That "gut feeling" is what will drive you with these tabs after you have seen and handled them for some time.
I have two portrait pictures of ss officers with the skull tabs and if you e mail me your address I would gladly have color repro's made and send them to you. It would help some because at least you are looking at the real thing.
I'm sure this topic will continue to be discussed with varying opinions as long as we collect these tabs, as I said it is the toughest item to make a call on, Sonny

**CurtD** · 07-25-2005, 12:40 PM

Perhaps someone will come out with a Home Carbon-14 Test Kit soon (for $19.95).

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