Show Us Your Branch-Piped W-SS Visor

[sturmbannfuhrer]

Colleague Sturmbannfuhrer - I think the jury is in on this (see postings 1/28); badges apparently wrong (no sin), but cap appears suspect on several levels.

Hi Bruce, your right about those badges, I pointed that one in my recent post. SScollector spotted them in a flash. Cap aside, what do you think about about my view on the Himmler question. Do you think caps were still manufactured to order, after the 1940 wear out date. Bearing in mind, SS regulations did not apply to the tailors, only the wearers. An interesting point.

I do find this forum excellent. There are a lot of good views out there.

[TonyS]

This is entirely my point. My wild a%% guess (Hegel's historical cunning, as it were...) would now be that someone wore Waffenfarbe on the cap before 1940, and surely, many wore it long after the dorky RFSS told them to cease doing so. Look at all the army badges on uniforms and headgear in the SSVT in the era 1934, 1935 and 1936, for instance.

I think Donald nailed that point earlier. If an officer purchased a cap with colored piping after the regulation who would know? unless he was forced to produce a dated receipt. I don't get the impression it was enforced to that extent.

[Bob Coleman]

If branch piped SS visor caps were produced after 1940, we certainly would see more legitimate examples in collections. Veteran collectors would also testify to have seeing more of them. Sorry, I have not seen enough physical evidence to agree with that opinion.
Bob

[TonyS]

Bob - sorry if I confused the issue - I was not inferring any were made after that date but I would bet some that were already made were still sold after that date.

[Bob Coleman]

Most likely, what branch piped hats that were produced were done to order and not as an off the shelf commodity. We must remember that a very short window allowed the wear of these hats by regulation. As was the case when the political leaders changed their uniforms drastically in 1939, the old uniform and badges were allowed to be worn for a further 18 months. Certainly, those who had purchased branch piped hats were allowed to continue wear them. As the war progressed, I doubt that an officer would be put on report for wearing his branch piped visor cap. Natural wearing out of the material would account for the destruction of many of these hats. There are a lot more branch piped hats in existance today than were manufactured in the total ten month period when they were allowed.
Bob

[Bobwirtz]

My perspective on this issue is this: When the order came out in November 1940 rescinding the order to allow branch colored piping on service caps, the manufacturers were the ones that adhered to it, not necessarily the troops. The troops had a wear out period and many field officers probably wore these long after that date. But remember, who has a monetary interest in uniforms, caps, etc.? The tailors and clothing manufacturers. After the order was rescinded I'm sure that if a tailor had five Waffen-SS Officer Service Caps with various branch colors, he probably pulled them off of the shelf, tore them down and replaced the black band for a dark-green one and put Army insignia on them. If an officer came into a tailor shop and really wanted a branch colored cap, the tailor either scratch-built him a cap, or took one of the Army officer caps and converted it into one of SS. Personally, I think the truly RARE caps are the branch piped NCO/OTHER RANKS. The SS-Clothing-Works, as well as SS Clothing Contractors, did not manufacture caps with branch colors - just the white. Therefore, if an NCO wanted one of these caps, he would have to private purchase one. Not too many NCOs with families, etc. would spend the money to get one. Officers were provided with a clothing allowance and therefore could easily afford these. How many SS NCOs have you seen wearing raincoats or leather coats? These were not issued, but bought so usually only officers wore them. And in 1940, how big was the Waffen-SS? Not that large so how many branches did it have? How many engineers, artillery, signals, etc? And out of those, how many bought branch colored service caps? Today you see these all over the place. Some dealers have 15 branch colored service caps and not a single white one! Janke made many of these just after the war with original cloth, insignia, etc. on the same machines they were originally made on. He made them as reproductions but on today's market they're being offered as the real thing. My viewpoint on these caps is that the originals are as rare as chickens teeth and gums and I don't believe many that I see... and are skeptical of the rest of them. My 2 cents... or was that 3?

Bob

[Antiquefrog]

Colleagues - I doubt vanity was an issue during wartime - my guess is, caps were ordered and issued more or less in line with regulations. The attrition rate for grey caps issued c. 1940 is staggering, and the likelihood of a legitimate branch-piped example surviving most probelmatical - surely no more than a few, based on odds alone, could have made it through the war and into friendly hands at war's end - and the likelihood of one falling into the clutches of a form member today - almost zero. Yet my data suggest continued sales of these caps, even as we speak, for serious money.

[Donald Abenheim]

Ordnung bewahren

One would do well to keep in mind that clothing was rationed in Germany at the outbreak of the war. This stricture applied to officers of the various organizations, as well. I also think someone should cut through this gordian knot of speculation with some more profound, revealing documentary evidence vs gun show lore. None has ever been forthcoming other than the citations in Mollo (does anyone actually have a photocopy of the document he cites...to see if the translation is complete...?), and after thirty five years, surely someone has done more research in the relevant material (archives, Uniformenmarkt, &c. RFSS files) and can raise the level of debate. And as concerns a point above, vanity was, in fact, an issue where men could have their clothing tailor made, which applied to a fraction of the officer corps of the SS probably until the air raids began to devastate German cities in about 1943/4. I once more urge those serious about all of this to avail themselves of the Fa. Rest/Vienna volumes on uniforms of the imperial and Rw period. The material there is spectacular, especially as iit gives one a sense of personal taste vs regulations. There is a big hunk of anachronism extrapolated from a misunderstanding of how historical Germany actually worked versus the kind of overly standardized, homogenized, routinized, and cookie-cutter world of the 21st century what with the wares of Walmart, GAP, and God knows what else. The past had more diversity, richness, and confusion in it.

[RD Rygaard]

this photo dated 1943

[RD Rygaard]

Gentlemen:

I can testify that these caps were worn (manufactured?) WAY past the 1940 cut off date.Also out of the 15,000 + original SS pics I have I must say that at least HALF (maybe more) of all the color piped visors are worn by enlisted men as opposed to officers. I will post more later but I even have a latvian volunteer with what looks to be an artillery piped visor (definately color piping just not sure what branch) dated 1944. I also note that the most common in these photos seem to be artillery,pioneer, & panzer. Of course none of this proves anything ,just noting my observations. Regards Rich


This pic dated 1942

[Dennis S]

[quote=Bruce Burnham]Colleagues - I doubt vanity was an issue during wartime - my guess is, caps were ordered and issued more or less in line with regulations. ]

I am not arguing about the rarity of the hats, but I think your wrong on the vainity issue. If this was the case, soldiers wouldn't have so many studio photos taken of themselves. A man in uniform looks good and he knows it. Ask any woman.

[John Pic]

Im not picking on anyone or doubting the experiences and knowledge gained by that by anyone here. But I personally in 30 years have not seen that many well made branch piped visors for sale that werent sold as fakes,or were just poor copies. By poor I mean old Jankes that were aged using cat piss and all had phoney insignias. The oldest Jankes I had and I had 5 of them from the 1970s era all had white thread used under the liner that flouresced in UV light. They were all marked with the soldier logo except for the "rare" white topped Allgemeine SS cap which had poorly cast "solid silver" insignias that looked ok from the front but the backs were awful. I compared them with later jankes which were better but all shared the same quality and no longer incorperated original materials. I was shown a Frankenstein cap by my friend Kevin and it looked darn good but one could clearly see the loose fitting cap band and mistakes made in stitching.
I dont think that being overly skeptical of every color piped cap serves the collecting community well. What I read from Donald and based on my own thorough repetitious browsing of period photos in my numerous books shows me there were quite a few color piped caps worn by both officers and enlisted throughout the war. Ive also noticed a couple pictures where the black band was obviously lighter and possibly a Heer cap with SS insignias added.My theory and opinion are that things often were used and worn that we havent the knowledge to make a call yet on them . Collectors use terms such as "late war" on items and then I see one appear in a photo from the 1940 French campaign. I saw a picture of a Canvas peaked visor "crusher" which appeared made to match the officers Summer tunic.All kinds of oddities existed and I bet many were passed off as fakes after the war.
In the end the collectors hands on assessment is the final judge and the comfort you have owning a piece in your collection and paying the money for it. I havent made money in this hobby because I buy what I like not to please the community and for resale. If I get tired of something I sell it for what I paid for it or what I think its worth but always the easiest way to be happy and make another collector happy.
I forgot... more recently, last five years or so, I bought a cap from Manions which had a famous logo in it and was white piped. Right away it felt odd though it was near perfect. I posted it on GDC and no one could say out right that it was good or bad, only give me counsel advice.Bob Coleman said that fake ones he had held appeared to be heavier in weight and that was the first thing I noticed. Sure enough under the lining there were the luminescing threads.

[Antiquefrog]

Most instructive input, and I thank everyone. We have all learned a great deal here. I would submit, based on empirical evidence alone, that: 1) many dozens, if not hundreds, of white-piped visors have survived the scrutiny of the collecting community and sell regularly in the 4K-8K range; 2) I simply cannot believe that vanity, or a woman's admiration, would have produced a widely disproportionate order pattern for branch-piped caps - what did the wearers, much less their girlfriends, know of the eventual reversal of this order?! Really, I must disagree on common sense alone. 3) The facts: on the major international websites, over the last 19 months, my input shows white-piped visors outselling branch-piped caps by less than 2:1. We all know this is spurious. Branch-piped sales exceeded 30, most bogus, in fact probably all of them. White-piped sales (at least 60% seemed real, probably more) equaled 56. This is hardly scientific, but I would posit that 4) given 1940 enlistment rates and probable attrition rates for grey caps, the branch-piped visor is incredibly rare - viz the submissions on this thread. If it were as treasured or long-lived as many members suggest, surely we would have seen at least one we could all agree on.

[Dennis S]

"simply cannot believe that vanity, or a woman's admiration, would have produced a widely disproportionate order pattern for branch-piped caps - what did the wearers, much less their girlfriends, know of the eventual reversal of this order"

Bruce, I was just making a point that a soldiers vanity obviously didn't cease during wartime. Not that this had anything to do with the rarity of the caps. That was your point ,the lack of vanity having a been a factor.
I was just disagreeing on vanity factor not the rarity of the caps.

[Antiquefrog]

Dennis - don't take me too seriously here; I'm just speculating for the fun of it. I want to thank everyone for their participation on this thread, and would only conclude, based on the numbers, that: 1) there were hundreds of thousands (literally) of hard grey caps produced from the late 30's through 1945 as the war escalated; 2) whether branch-piped visors were produced after the cut-off date, or treasured later for any reason, will always be speculative, but in any event 3) raw estimates of all grey caps produced 1941-45 would suggest that, under even under the most generous assumptions, there couldn't be many of these colored versions around - certainly far less than current dealer sales, which average nearly two per month, versus white-piped sales of around around 3.5 per month. 4) I just want all of you to be careful - many collectors of esoteric SS material are not.