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**magprint** · 07-24-2005, 07:33 PM

Thank You

Donald,

Thank you.

I believe the hat to be real. Everyone of the 5-6 people who have handled the hat agree. But as I often say the only person you have to please with any collection - is yourself.

I placed the images on the forum to get futher opinions. If there is an acknowledged SS Visor "maven" amongst our members I would be happy to let he/she have a direct look at the visor.

I am not sure if I will keep the visor or sell it. Needless to say it is a very expensive piece. The more positive feedback I get about it the better the next owner will feel.

Again, thanks Donald for your guidance. And I repeat, if you would like to handle the hat please let me know.

Regards,
Rich Moran

**Robert H** · 07-24-2005, 07:37 PM

I cannot say it is for sure an original visor, but I this visor has some very good details that I realy like a lot. But when I would found this visor I have to get it proofen from the real W-SS visor collectors too.
I just know from my self that I optained once by my self over in germany a mint unissued SS visor out from the tailor store. So the history (the real one) is also interesting where came this head out?

**Peter A Larson** · 07-24-2005, 07:57 PM

I for one would be intersted in the final decision you make on the disposition of this visor.I would also like to see the one in pink you will be keeping in your collection.

**magprint** · 07-24-2005, 08:07 PM

Originally posted by Peter A Larson

I for one would be intersted in the final decision you make on the disposition of this visor.I would also like to see the one in pink you will be keeping in your collection.

Peter,

The pink visor will not be shown at this time, it will be staying in my personal collection.

If I decide to sell this (red piped) visor I can let you know.

Thanks for your post.
Rich Moran

**DonC** · 07-24-2005, 08:52 PM

Dear Donald -

Aprospos of nothing at all , and completely off topic here, but as a historian by training myself, I enjoyed your interjection of the Allegory of the Cave - it's about time someone classed up this joint!

All I can add to the discussion of the visor in question is that the vagaries of SS headgear are a primary reason that I stick to Heer items. Rich, I am pulling for you and hope the caps come out kosher.

Don

**SJP** · 07-24-2005, 09:09 PM

The proliferation of these hats since the mid 70s makes one wonder if originals even existed.IMO this one appears to be an original,typical "depot" (budget) issue piece.The insignia looks to be replaced.I have a Nachrichteneinten piped EM visor almost identical to this one.Cheers Steve

**W.Unland** · 07-24-2005, 10:45 PM

Hello,

I never post on this, the SS forum, because it is the least tolerant of those of us who have not been "annointed" as having enough high end pieces to be considered worth listening to. That said I could not help myself but to indulge in a few observations.

First, if a true evaluation of the cap were sought, I think the attribution to one of the "gods" of collecting would have been left off. Few are willing to stake their good standing with the old boys on the forum by seeming to doubt the "true faith". I think that were it posted without additional comment, many of the "experts" lurking about would have been more than happy to offer their "judgement", be it right or wrong. They have never hesitated to do so on my postings.

And while mentioning the "gods" of the hobby might I be so bold as to point out that I have had the "pleasure" of unknowingly buying reproductions from ALL of them, at one time or another. Nobody is infallible. They all make mistakes. Some are honest, some are not.

Indeed, Steve Wolfe has one of the world's most impressive accumulations of high end TR relics. Had I inherited 10's of millions to indulge my hobby I proffer that I might too. BUT I remember his small shop down on Broadway in Long Beach in the 60's where he sold the usual Kasser and Souval repros to us kids and the sailors and marines that frequented the area when it was the "Home of the 7th Fleet". I was also a regular customer of his "Military Shop" in Lakewood in the 70's. Although I never had enough money to be invited into the "cage" to see the "good stuff", what was offered to me for sale was no better or worse than every other dealer of the era. Resewn and reworked tunics and caps, some good some not so good. How he was elevated to his current god-like standing has always baffled me! I guess it is a factor of the common tendancy to judge one's "value" by the number of "toys" one has.

But I wander. Back to the cap in question. Like the previous poster, I would point out that I never saw anything of this type, quality, or condition back in the 60's and 70's when these things were still being pulled out of GI's foot lockers,and the German dealers were shipping everything to the states where it would bring the best price. The interior of the hat suggests it was a contracted for, depot issued piece. Now my understanding is that these piped caps were authorized for a very, very short period of time, and the consensus is that authentic examples were probably private purchase "vanity" pieces, for want of a better term. The "probability that if a depot cap was in fact ever made, that it could survive in mint condition to this date is very slight indeed. Not impossible, just very improbable.

The "Too Good To Be True" rule has proven itself in all aspects of life, including collecting. I collect police insignia, because that has until now been an unpopular and consequently affordable area of the hobby. Lately I see prices climbing through the roof as the police is more and more associated with the SS by dealers trying to make police items more "sexy". $10 sleeve eagles are now $200 and the repros are flooding the market. Some of them are wonderfully done, and indistiguishable from the real thing. Now what about a $20,000 cap. Hum, quite a motivation to make a really good copy there. Not saying yours is a copy, just pointing out that ANYTHING that was made in the 30's can be made today, if you're willing to spend the time and money to do it right. The materials are all still available. East Europe still produces "natural" fabrics on antique machinery and there are still plenty of East european tailors who until a few years ago were turning out nearly identical caps for the DDR.

All of that being considered I see NOTHING wrong with the cap's construction etc. But "IT"S TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE" is flashing in front of my eyes, and that warning has always proven to be warranted in my past experiences.

Now I will disappear again, back to the police forum where I belong.

Regards,
W.Unland

**SScollector** · 07-24-2005, 10:57 PM

Well, the skull looks good. I can't say about the eagle though, without better pics. Can you post better pics of the eagle?

Best, Chris

**Donald Abenheim** · 07-24-2005, 11:53 PM

Der Gott der Eisen wachsen liess...

Originally posted by DonC

Dear Donald -

Aprospos of nothing at all , and completely off topic here, but as a historian by training myself, I enjoyed your interjection of the Allegory of the Cave - it's about time someone classed up this joint!

All I can add to the discussion of the visor in question is that the vagaries of SS headgear are a primary reason that I stick to Heer items. Rich, I am pulling for you and hope the caps come out kosher.

Don

Dear Colleague, Dean, sir. Thanks for the word in favor of the humanities. Probably I should devote more time to the classics and less time to fetid German woolens and to the ins and outs of the collector/dealer hiearchies and food chains &c. &c. I should devote more energy to proper publishing and perishing, as well as peer review, faculty governance, promotion and tenure. Nonetheless, this little heap could do with more Quellenkritik and Quellenkunde because we are a kind of seminar in a very real sense. Some scholar should go to Germany and determine once and for all from the archival sources, in their #, the answers to some of these questions and go beyond the insufficient material in Mollo as well as the gun show lore that obtains to these items. Somewhere the matter of the colored piping is dealt with in more detail than in the terse citations in Mollo. The Wilkins book makes clear that cap makers: a.) DID NOT KNOW THE REGULATIONS; b.) THEY KNOWINGLY FLAUNTED REGULATIONS TO PLEASE THEIR FASHION CONSCIOUS MILITARY CUSTOMERS; c.) GERMANS DO NOT ALL FOLLOW THE RULES ALL THE TIME; THEY OFTEN BREAK THEM, TOO---I KNOW, I HAVE SEEN IT IN MY TWENTY FIVE YEARS AROUND GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN SOLDIERS; d.) ARMED SS PEOPLE WANTED TO IMITATE THE CUSTOMS AND TRADITIONS OF THE ARMY A LOT, ACTUALLY, EVEN IF HH WANTED TO STOP THEM TO UPHOLD THE ETHOS OF THE GESAMT SS; READ THE MEMOIRS OF HAUSSER AND STEINER. READ THE PETTIFOGGING CORRESPONDENCE OF HIMMLER, HIMSELF ON THIS SCORE; READ HIS SPEECHES, TOO ON HIS FETISHIZATION OF A KIND OF POLITICAL SOLDIER REGALIA VERSUS THAT OF THE CASTE-CONSCIOUS, COUNTER REVOLUTIONARY PRUSSIAN MILITARY CLIQUE. ALL THESE FIGURES TALK ABOUT THIS GERMAN ARMY PUSH-PULL SYNDROME ALOT, IN FACT, even if it is very self serving apologia to get them off the hook for being involved in, pardon me, war crimes and mass murder. I commend in this regard the volume of HH's letters edited by Heiber in 1968; the more recent volume from the 1990s on much the same material; and the volume of his speeches published in the early-1970s edited by Smith and Peterson; and do read Hausser's and Steiner's memoirs, all the same, as well as the most recent find of HH's desk calendar for 1942. Then one can divine the context for much of what is in Mollo and, please God, will be in the finished work of Beaver, God rest his soul in peace.

Sapere aude! I repeat: I make no final assessment about this cap and I make no comment on the expertise of the dealers in question. Suum cuique.

**John Pic** · 07-25-2005, 12:11 AM

W.Unland, you offer some very good comments and experience. I too was a patron of the Lakewood shop. Why these guys are so lauded is also puzzleling to me.That said they do have a way of making items glow with appeal and I credit them with taking a "trading card" Hobby and turning it into a business that mimics collecting Fine Art bringing some romance to the hunt. I blame them for making some items unreachable to the average collector in price and spreading that around the world. I saw a geld cloth piped Visor while visiting and was not convinced it was a good one. It had all the earmarks of Frankenstein. I also saw one tunic with an eagle that resembled the type that IMO is a reproduction often tagged with "Carl Sieder". But two mistakes in a Room filled with wonderful items was not a big deal. Here is a cap I owned and whenever I look now I m reminded of the aged condition of this one.

**John Pic** · 07-25-2005, 12:12 AM

The interior

**John Pic** · 07-25-2005, 12:15 AM

Closer of interior

**Donald Abenheim** · 07-25-2005, 12:33 AM

Jlse Lambert and the ravages of time

The cap above I had in my hands for a half an hour and I sniffed it and felt it, too. I had a chance to buy this Hessian Lambert cap and did not do so in a fit of false budget consciousness. Instead, I bought the black uniform that was with this cap in a large so. California collectiona few years back--the dealer had bought a large collection with some very handsome pieces in it. This grey cap, to the best of my knowledge, was wholly real. This being said, a cap can survive in what is remarkable and even death-defying condition. Grey SS caps tend, im my experience, to be often beat up and used, like the Lambert cap here. But what does this statement mean? I know black SS caps in perfect condition, at the same time, pieces that were Kammerexemplare or the extra wear piece that stayed behind in the Kleiderschrank while its wearer went up in a ball of Sturmovik or Stalinorgel fire at Kursk or the battle of the Seelower Hoehen at the Oderbruch. Once again, I shall let others assess dealers and their wares. A cap stands or falls, like any piece of regalia, on its own merits and the empirical evidence of its authenticity or lack of same. Probably someone needs to invent a certification test for various kinds of regalia administered by some impartial board to determine by peer review if we are talking out of b++k s+++e or have some shred of truth to what we say. My only point: there has to be some form of expertise divorced from profit and from a dealer cartel that relies on a monopoly of knowledge to impose standards on others with little recourse to independent sources of knowledge.

**nutmeg** · 07-25-2005, 03:05 AM

This one was a recent direct vet buy along with a mint PP pistol which vet said came from around Bad Tolz. The only one I ever got from a vet in 40 years of collecting! Inside is a little salty and the eagle was missing so I got an appropriate original from Bill Shea. Managed to get the vet to write a nice letter to go with it. No makers name.

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**nutmeg** · 07-25-2005, 03:07 AM

inside

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