Ss Smock Opinion

[pete]

.

The dyes used in the ww2 german system should reflect the variables of that system based on the dye being used, war situation at the time of construction, current technology at the time although we know they were advanced over the allies, and that their technology for example assisted to have such technology in fashions as the 60s. Other items like zelts or helmet covers from the periods throughout the war could be used to assist in that test as well. I am sure there are enough people with non mint items to help. Then, with that set of variables once found can be put to the known post war dye system, say 50s, 60s, 70s used by the market and should show a complete different base for dye technology because there was no shortage by then, and, we would also be into the more advanced dyes of the 50s-70s etc. They should be able to date the dye to a period it was commonly used when you think about it logically, IMO.



Pete

[willy]

Pete, good direction I certainly feel it will be one more added plus in the originality column. I would like to see two separate columns with known facts leaning toward real vs known facts leaning toward fake. Facts not (my buddy was told by a dealer in 1980 it was fake)

Why would someone making a fake to deceive (and that would be my guess based on quality) go to great links in construction quality then deviate from a known oak camo print to create a IMO new type/variation of camo? To top it all off would let rats eat part of your profits, to create an illusion of being found in an old warehouse.

[Fritz]

Pete, good direction I certainly feel it will be one more added plus in the originality column. I would like to see two separate columns with known facts leaning toward real vs known facts leaning toward fake. Facts not (my buddy was told by a dealer in 1980 it was fake)

Why would someone making a fake to deceive (and that would be my guess based on quality) go to great links in construction quality then deviate from a known oak camo print to create a IMO new type/variation of camo? To top it all off would let rats eat part of your profits, to create an illusion of being found in an old warehouse.

I wouldn't say they are "fake", IMO they are just post 45, perhaps made for a young eastern bloc army. Who knows. To me they are not of ww2 issue.

Cheers

Fritz

[Mike C]

I'm with Fritz on this one. With the exception (perhaps) of the W-SS dot para smock, every camo pattern used by the Wehrmacht was issued for field use - to include liebermuster. Yet we are to believe that these smocks (whose production was offically discontinued on 1 March 1944) survived unissued in a depot in the east - this during a period of critical shortages in field uniforms. Doesn't seem to jive for me....

Mike

[willy]

Mike C
As you stated with the SS DOT para, there are exceptions. I think it is at least plausible they were left over stock.

[pete]

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Regarding those smocks, i would be interested to see what period the dye originates from, if like i said tested at the basic level and held against "knowns."

At least if they came back and said this dye does not match the 10 other specimins spectrum of variation at all, but does match dye not commonly available until the 70s for example, or even 50s......things changed when the war was over with materials not in shortage any more. Question from me would be, what was in shortage in the post war eastern bloc though......and did they use older stuff in soceity, we all know it was hard to get brandname fashion clothes and the like in some of these countries in the post war, for example when the 60s hit them.

Until we haul somebody in the direct chain (if these are post war) who made them or knew about them, or wore them as a vet or an eastern block army, the monkey is gonna chase the weasel for ever! People seem to give weight to science so, I cant see any other way, call it a smock DNA test if you will. Lets see if this smock is related to the DNA of its family (known production system) or is related to a pair of tie dyed bell bottoms.

Pete

[Mike C]

Hi Willy,

The dot 44 para smocks were VERY late war items (likely 1945 production) with no evidence that they ever issued - and yet some soldiers returned home with them. Why these smocks, whose production was discontinued in mid-1944, would not be issued...in time of critical shortage...is an issue for me.

I was also point out that W-SS camo experimentation generally took place in pre- and early war years. That is why you see the extremely rare patterns in M38 and M40 smocks - but not M42 smocks. Why this change with latewar oakleaf....

Mike

[willy]

Wow, this is getting interesting.

1. Would a poor Eastern block country tool up for a smock & make it exactly like an SS smock, would it be more cost effective to buy already made left overs from somewhere else (surplus)? Why make German camo if a war just ended with plently of left over uniforms from the Soviet Union? Why make it close to Oak A but make it a variation, why not go ahead and make it just like Oak A ?

2. If they were made for a countries fighting forces post war why did they come out in quantity in the 80s and not the 90s when the wall fell?

3. My personal observation of Eastern block uniforms were a version if not the same uniform as the Soviets.

4. Could this be East German?

[willy]

Maybe we are too specialized in our collecting interests to have the knowledge of Eastern block camo. Does anyone know of any Eastern block uniform collectors out there who can pin this down? We keep looking for pre 45 pics maybe we need some post 45-pics of European camo in use.

[besslein]

Maybe we are too specialized in our collecting interests to have the knowledge of Eastern block camo. Does anyone know of any Eastern block uniform collectors out there who can pin this down? We keep looking for pre 45 pics maybe we need some post 45-pics of European camo in use.

I have never heart that any eastern europe army have used a oak leaf model camo

[phild]

Hi Willy,

The dot 44 para smocks were VERY late war items (likely 1945 production) with no evidence that they ever issued - and yet some soldiers returned home with them. Why these smocks, whose production was discontinued in mid-1944, would not be issued...in time of critical shortage...is an issue for me.

I was also point out that W-SS camo experimentation generally took place in pre- and early war years. That is why you see the extremely rare patterns in M38 and M40 smocks - but not M42 smocks. Why this change with latewar oakleaf....

Mike

Real or fake the debate on these just seems to never end.

I do not know exactly how many of these smocks came in (or were "found") but I have heard from several people who had some direct involvement when these were parced up among the first dealers that it was several hundred....I don't know if that means 200 or 500 or something else.
There are hundreds of possible reasons that such a quantity of smocks were left at the end of the war. I would think most of us who have studied these uniforms would agree that hundreds of thousands of items if not millions were left un-issued by the end of the war (40,000 2nd model tropical helmets alone!!!) and many of these were pre-war and early war items....so not remarkable that some smocks from 42/43 might be left over.

My believe is that if say 2000 were contracted and around 1500 were issued to 3 or 4 Battlions in the east during mid-43 for example and the rest were in the back of an SS depot in Poland or CZ, I would have no reason to believe that any would have been found in the west prior to those from that depot being brought in.

These things would typically last about 6 months in the field depending on a few factors and the men (front line W-SS infantry soldiers) would in the main last even less. Those who think that combat worn clothing items and most other combat used indivdual equipment lasted for years and moved from front to front with the divisons need to read the records and understand the total re-fitting and causualty figues to better understand the totality of the destruction of the men and material actually in the fighting.

As to the pattern, as I have stated so often, I do not see this as really an experimental pattern but rather an adaption of the existing pattern to fit larger rollers. The colors are somwhat different but again this is true on a lot of German Camo items.

Believe me when I say that the first time I saw a brushed cotton truely pink colored dot pattern SS 4 pocket tunic about 37 years ago I said that there is no way that this could be original. Wrong fabric, wrong color...and it even had "plastic" pebble buttons....well.... enough said.

[foamspoon]

" (40,000 2nd model tropical helmets alone!!!) "

Phild,

Can you go into more details on this statement?

Bryan

[Mike C]

Hi Phild,

With respect, I can well understand why many items remained in depots at war's end - tropical helmets (with the Wehrmacht no longer in Africa or southern Europe) or many M43/44 tunics (still in manufacture at war's end) but a smock that had ended a production in 1944? Perhaps...

I don't think that any clothing manufacturing (with a unique printing pattern requiring different rollers, etc) would have taken an order as low as 2000 smocks (which was less than a quarter of the estimated smock production for June 1940 - when the W-SS comprised slightly more than division) - it wouldn't have covered their expenses.

And no pictures - despite numerous archival images from 1943/1944?

As for the pink 4-pocket, I certain would have accepted it as real - as research would have discovered numerous examples with good provenance in collections/museums - as well as good period photos.

this being said, I still wait for that unquestionable image from an East Front volunteer W-SS division showing this smock in wear...

Cheers,

Mike

[pete]

.

Just a teaser, but as you can see the dye industry has had many milestones, i believe alot of that was possible from the ww2 german camo industry for example and that those dyes of that period on smocks ( or other items) should be linked directly to that period or before. As its evident different dyes date to different times when the technology of that dye was first discovered and used....and not only dyes but the fiber structure of the item as well on the basic level might not even be what we think or perceive it to be, also which might be able to be linked to a period. The lab is the way to go, only way, IMO, apart from new evidence surfacing which we just dont have.

I have a gut feeling that there is a paper or study in germany right now somewhere in the technology museums or societies that show german advances and milestones in fabric technology, to include the dyes. By rights a measure should be able to be taken from that to form a timeline of dyes say 1930s-2008 to compare from and assisted by actual testing of specimins donated from us.


Best,

Pete

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi...ournalCode=cte

http://www.fabrics.net/joan703.asp

Following World War II, a number of factors combined to foster a new direction in home products and textiles. Designers like Charles and Ray Eames and Verner Panton responded to the new open-plan architecture of the modern home with furnishings that were seen as functional, free-standing art forms.

When most people think of the 50s, they think "kitsch," items that can be flamboyant in their design, but have a fun appeal to them. The attraction of the 1950s for the tablecloth collector is the sheer variety of fun patterns and bold prints that were available during this prosperous time in America's textile history.

Kitchen textiles were designed with bold geometric and abstract free-form shapes and textures. 1950s tablecloth manufacturers such as Styled by Dervan featured motifs by prominent textile designers of the time, each with a different style and flavor and always with the artists' signatures in the corner of the tablecloth. These are wacky, fun, stylistic examples of what was popular during the 1950s.

http://www.straw.com/sig/dyehist.html


1936 First pair of stockings knit with a new synthetic fiber from DuPont called "nylon" for which Carothers received the patent.
1938 Nylon formally introduced to the public
1948 Textiles became second largest industry in USA. The average consumer consumption per capita of fibers: 27 lbs cotton, 6.3 lbs rayon, 4.9 lbs wool.
1951 Irgalan dyes introduced by Geigy, 1st neutral pre-metallized dyes (did not require a lot of acid as Neolans did) Cibalans are the same type.
1950 Dupont introduced first commercial availability of Orlon, a new acrylic "wool substitute"
1951 DuPont announced that a plant in N.Carolina would begin to manufacture Dacron polyester.
1951 A new acrylic, Acrilan. was introduced by Chemstrand Corp.
1953 Cibalan Brilliant Yellow 3GL, a dye which lead the way to discovery of the fiber reactive dyes was introduced
1954 Celanese Corp announced first commercial production of an American triacetate, Arnel.
1956 ICI in England introduced Procion, first range of fiber reactive dye - this dye was to have a major impact on industry as well as textile artists around the world (more here)
1956 Eastman Kodak introduced Verel, a modified acrylic
1956 American Cyanamid introduced a new acrylic, Creslan
1956 One person working out of every 7 in the USA received his income from work performed in textile or apparel industries!
1957 CIBA introduces Cibacrons, a new range of reactive dyes and the first to compete with ICI's Procion series
1958 Eastman Kodak introduced Kodel polyester.
1964 First permanent press finishes used
1968 DuPont introduces Qiana, a fancy nylon with "silk" feel and drape
1968 For the first time manmade fibers topped natural fibers for US consumption. 5 billion pounds vs 4.6 billion pounds, the use of polyester was growing the most quickly.
1970s Late in the 70s, CIBA-Geigy introduced Cibacron F series (history here)

P.S I was impressed to see that they can even study pigments and dyes back through history to answer questions about objects from others areas much like we want to know about these smocks.

http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/SESLL/EngL...SPNS/bib12.htm

http://en.clearharmony.net/articles/200410/22262p.html

[phild]

Hi Phild,

With respect, I can well understand why many items remained in depots at war's end - tropical helmets (with the Wehrmacht no longer in Africa or southern Europe) or many M43/44 tunics (still in manufacture at war's end) but a smock that had ended a production in 1944? Perhaps...

I don't think that any clothing manufacturing (with a unique printing pattern requiring different rollers, etc) would have taken an order as low as 2000 smocks (which was less than a quarter of the estimated smock production for June 1940 - when the W-SS comprised slightly more than division) - it wouldn't have covered their expenses.

And no pictures - despite numerous archival images from 1943/1944?

As for the pink 4-pocket, I certain would have accepted it as real - as research would have discovered numerous examples with good provenance in collections/museums - as well as good period photos.

this being said, I still wait for that unquestionable image from an East Front volunteer W-SS division showing this smock in wear...

Cheers,

Mike

Mike,

The figure that you cite for June 1940 was ( I believe and I'm sorry if I am wrong) was a delivery on a "batch" that they had been working up for a while. I don't believe that these smocks were ever made in near that quantitiy every month....but I do agree that 2000 is a low number for a "special contract. There are explainations for why the number made could have been fairly low, why the attrition could have been very high (it was for all types of smocks as I would say that only a fraction of 1% of all made still survive today) but I also realize that speculation is not fact and does not advance our understanding of these.

What you have to realize about my coments on the pink dot pattern is that there really was NO information easily available on these or much anything else 35-40 years ago. We all have very limited and very general collecting references in 1970 or so. We all are shaped by what has become "accepted" as period orignal and I understand that but I also know that those boundries or not always 100% correct and they change all of the time at lest a little.

As to the 2nd model pith helmets. I have heard quantities from good sources and I have even seen a phtoograph of the inside of the storage building of numbers from 20,000 to 60,000....So I think that I reacall 40,000 but it could have been half that or 50% more! It is a fact that there were huge quantities of un-issued tropical gear and uniforms found in several locations in Europe as late as the 1970s and 80s and may be even today! I have seen bales of tunics in Germany and bundles of OS caps...all 100% still tied in some cases.