"Pink" smock or not?

[phild]

Vince, you are mixing up your smocks. The smocks under discussion are completely reversible, in all respects, just like accepted smocks.

s/f Robert

Thank you for trying to clear this up with the truth (they are TRULY reversible in every respect) , but sadly this (that they are not reversible due to how the buttons are sewn???) is just one mis-stated "fact" that has been posted over the last few days. I am going to try and clear up some other mis-statements with some FACTS and people can do what the will them:

FIRST- I never said or wrote that the first of these smocks to reach the market were without stamps! Quite the opposite, the stamped smocks were the first that saw and most seemed to be stamped albeit with marked out, bleached out or cut out stamps.....these obliterated stamps and some not stamped were the state of these smocks when they came it and this has been attested to by a couple of people who were there when Floch got them.....Floch did not stamp these smocks, much less with 3 different stamps per smock plus a 4th marking inventory number and then turn around and mark out the same stamps, cut them out in other cases and bleach them out in still other cases.

This assertion is so foolish that it defies all belief. This conversation about fake stamps is also foolish. There has been this suggestion, indeed now becoming a factual assertion that these stamps were/are fakes that were placed into most (but not all) of thse smocks and some real accepted SS clothing in order to boost the lot of fake smocks.....this is pure non-sense....

I stated to Vince in a post that the FIRST smocks to sell for the most money were generally those that were UN-STAMPED......there were plenty of stamped (but defaced) ones around at the same time but most collected )myself included) wanted one that was unmarked. This is what I said and that is the fact. Anyone who says otherwise was not there and is talking something that they know nothing about....end of that story.

Now, about the "elaborate" scam by Floch -------Well if there was one I never saw any evidence of it and he failed miserably! There were not stories about how original these were or how the stamps made them real or "Look here is a SS Palm smock with these same stamps so these others must be real too"....this is the crap that is being asserted here and it is non-sense.

What occurred is that Floch brokered this deal for a quantity of smocks....some say 250-500 as an estimate of what he got....I don't know but that range seems plausible. These arrived in a few "bales" and a number of loose smocks....some say that the bales were a few of 25 or 50 each and that most were loose and rolled up the size of softballs and stuffed in duffle bags.
Generally most or all in the bales were un-stamped. The smocks on the bottoms, tops and sides of the bales were very dirty and to varying degrees damaged. I saw some with damage.

Most of the loose smocks...which were the majority, were stamped and defaced.
Floch sold most all of these very quickly to a host of dealers from several countries with the German dealers being at the ground floor. I suspect based on what I later saw, that most of these dealers cherry picked the smocks on the best condition and usually those without stamps when they could and what was left were those with damage and cut out pockets and these sold even cheaper.

Two things (AT LEAST!) are very important for everyone to understand:
There was no story and no credibility given to stamps at that time.....zero nothing....it is a fact that they hurt the value and cast more doubt......there were rumors or stories that Floch had obtained these from the "East" and several countries were mentioned......the stamps were un-readable and were never cited to me or anyone that I spoke with as lending anything to the origin and I am talking in 1981 and 82 and 83.....all of those years going to maybe 6-8 shows per year (except no so many in 81)
The second thing and I have NOT seen this FACT mentioned is isn't it interesting that in EVERY case the main part of the marking defaced and often the only part of stamping really defaced is the first word in the top left of the block? Keep in mind in was the same back in 81 when the dealers started getting them....I saw the same thing.

I guess to the relief of everyone I am again done with subject for now. I feel like a lot of folks are writing me off as a dupe, naïve about collecting and unable to tell good from bad or at least able to distinguish old sewing and real age and wear....and much else that is even worse.......I am able to form my own opinions about items and certainly about people by what they think they know and how they assert.....this thread as been a rich gold mine for me to do that! Thank you everyone!

Lastly....I am sick of seeing this assertion that these are not "made correctly" Show me? They are perfect in size dimension, cut and seam....PERFECT...stop the BS and back up your claim or shut up.

Out

[Disco Partisan]

I have owned different sized specimens of these smocks. I have a large one now, others have small and I'm assuming there are ones in between.

Then this is another distinction between the "pink" smocks and the standard W-SS M-42 smocks - which are one size fits all. There are no known standard M-42 smocks with size markings (and I have owned several mint examples) and when laid side by side they are all the same size.

Is this true that the "pink" smocks can be found in different sizes ?
Can owners of pink smocks compare the length of their pink smock with any original smock side-by-side? Because, as Mike correctly said, all original smocks (of all patterns) when laid side by side they are all the same length

[phild]

I could agree that it's premature to say they are not original but not at this stage.
How many more clues do we need to finally make up our mind?
We already have too many unanswered questions about these smocks and unidentifiable movie-studio-name in the stamps just adds up more doubts to it.
Almost everything that we examined about these smocks is not in their favor.
They came from Floch, which is the King of fakes.
Many details are red flags like mismatched buttons, wrong camo pattern, etc.
No such smocks have been found in veteran bring-backs, etc. No single evidence of their originality. So far we found no single reason to believe they are good and we tried hard.

There are pages of reasons that these smocks lend themselves as originals that have been posted. One can ignore the facts that are in there favor and there are a lot of them, if they choose but that does not change those facts.

Some your points above:
Floch, king of fakes....maybe but also king of real original cloth hoards from the 70s and after, and this is undisputed. Most of his fakes were sold by him as such (but not downstream and consisted of insignia and metal items such as insignia, shields (fantasy), badges and medals....not made BY him but perhaps for him.

Buttons mismatched-----not actually always.....many of these that I looked at has two or more matched buttons and perhaps others not so matched (back marked the same....but this is another "so what?" it proves or even indicates very little other than the buttons came from more than one source...and we have to consider if these were faked and 500 were made...someone had to excrete 2000 original EM contract buttons! It is also well documented in period German documents that buttons were stripped from un-repairable feld collected German tunics and re-cycled. EVERY button that I have seen on these smocks and checked....and I would say that has been 100 or so over the years has been a wartime EM (dished back) type button with very good to mint paint and either aluminum or steel......

Wrong camo pattern- By who's standards? We all now admit that most of the pattern is true to OL with some inprov to extend to larger roller....this has long been known and the question is (again) while I will acknowledge that a faker might do this, why wouldn't a factory design also do it 1943 when all they have to go by is a sample smock and a mission to adapt the pattern to larger rollers???


No Vet bring backs----well there have been one or two posted here that claimed this and even as photos with some other items.....but as always (even with the notorious SS deacal/airbrush scandal with claims and photos of the same) it is hard to prove even if you or me pulled the item out of the attic....these claims on these smocks (one by the son of a 82nd abn vet) were quickly shouted down by the mob here .....of course.
The bigger answer is if these were made in the East and captured before any issue or even wide issue....why would anyone expect to find a vet bring back example?? We know for a fact that there were tens of thousands of SS block print smocks made before mid-1940....based on your logic there should be hundreds of those that were vet bring back backs....right?

The last statement is most disturbing " So far we found no single reason to believe they are good and we tried hard"
The ones (for the most part) who started out saying that these are fake and those who question that opinion are novice collectors and idiots.....have really done nothing but ignore the pages of evidence to the contrary and or tried to dismiss and dilute very strong evidence to the contrary. They have in fact dug their heels in to the position that they CAN not be original to the point the defies objective reasoning in a hobby that should be very open to evidence rather than flocking ( not Floching) around a couple of people deemed expert and demanding a COA or voting (among all crazy ways to validate something!) if something is original or not.

[RobertE]

I have never seen an actual size marking on one of these smocks. As far as length, I'm not certain but they all appear to be roughly the same length. But I known that some of these smocks fit tighter on a fitted out manikin than others.

I also owned and subsequently sold one with obvious rodent damage to the sleeve, which the new owner may post photos of if he desires. It was well chewed, and supports the report of these having been found in rodent-damaged bails.

s/f Robert

[Marc Shaffer]

So no WH wool items ?
NO KM boring pieces are found with the fake stamps ever found ?
No SS black tunics .....

its all so weird.

Kudos to the faker making up a nice back story that could not be cross checked in the 1980s.
Pretty smart.
No really smart.

owen

Yes, this is what I was meaning by other uniform items such as Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht tunics, trousers etc..... not just the SS pieces. That in itself will speak a volume about the source.

[RobertE]

I see. So because what must be a fairly obscure stamp has only been found in two other SS items, that's not enough? We need to locate examples of these stamps in items from other services and non-SS items to prove the SS smock markings are legitimate?

I'll suggest another course of action. Two examples of these stamps have been found in original SS garments, and that is undisputable. Please find and post two photos of fake uniform items bearing these stamps. Or even one? After all, folks on the other side of the discussion are suggesting the stamps mean nothing, and were merely added to enhance the value of a fake - so surely, other fake items would need to be advanced using this great technique.

s/f Robert

[phild]

I can not personally attest to different sizes on these as I have only measured two examples and one of those is the one that I own. In those two case the measurements were the same. Furthermore, several years ago (maybe 7-10 years ago) there was a posting by someone who owned and had studied many examples of accepted M42 style smocks. He posted the measurements of every critical area....sleeves length and width, torso width and length and also the bolt width as measured from the "half sleeve"...and all of his measurements had a RANGE of low to high and were within a few cm to define the range.

I printed that page without memorizing it and carefully measured all of those areas in my example and wrote them down while doing it. I then compared every measurement to the ones provided and they ALL fell with the ranges....which were pretty tight ranges.

I should add that the variation within the accepted originals (not necessarily regarding size measurements) is pretty astounding when you really look it/them. People talk about print quality, color shades, print variation in these smocks....when you see all manner of variation within the accepted examples including mis-match patterns incorporated and even some gross mis-prints (mainly on zelts) and real color variation between batches or lots. All kinds of buttons used, several different colors and weights of threads used....and different widths of hem seams and pocket edge seams....and more.

The hbt variation can be found in both M42 type1 and type2 config....indicating that some HBT examples (type 1) would or could have been made as early as late 1942 or early 43 latest. Even so, we only have like two or three (maybe) period photos where we can say they are for sure wearing HBT OL smocks.....If these photos did not exist or had not been found would we all be saying that HBT SS smocks are fake because they are different material, have a different cut (they actually do while these smocks do not!) and there is no period photo of them being worn?

[phild]

Yes, this is what I was meaning by other uniform items such as Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht tunics, trousers etc..... not just the SS pieces. That in itself will speak a volume about the source.

We are at the mercy of what people will post and what is out there. We don't know what we have not seen, but I know that at least one other item (yes it is W-SS) exist with these stamps and these items have been turned up in several different countries and not from Floch by all indications....it is difficult to reconstruct back 35 years ago a chain of custody on everything or even anything.

We know that about 10 years AFTER these smocks came into the community that large amounts of uniform material came in to the US from CZ that was marked Stasi film and dated with an inventory stamp of 1951.......most ALL of these items that I saw were in fact W-SS. No one questions them.

Overlooked here as so many things are is the FACT that ALL or most all (I personally went through dozens of these) of the caps and wraps brought back by GP in the late 80s/early 90s had Soviet property stamps and some hand written numbers...some marked out......I guess these are fakes as well and were piggy backing on the Floch fake formula of 10 years earlier??

Let's see, I think I have it figured out below:

Let's spend a 100K in 1978 dollars to procure factory time, train employees in 1940 sewing methods, find 2000 period buttons, kms length of period thread and period material and hbt....and modify a OL pattern to the rollers and find convincing dyes...and techicians and choose the most expensive to make pattern SS smock but the least valuable....and do every small detail right but not hide the pattern adaption...and then put bogus stamps and inventory numbers on them ( four different operations) that mean nothing and hurt the value even more, but lets not put these in all of them and also age them, but not too much in most cases and we will also hump up some real SS camo that we will not show the buyers anyway and then lets deface all of these stamps....train some rats to chew some of the smocks and then wholesale them J.Floch for $100 (250DM) each so we ONLY loose $50,000 on the deal... and then Floch can wholesale them to dozens of dealers and fool with all that entails for say a $25-$50 each gain and become a real rich guy.....making maybe $1500 on the years worth of work and grief.

Very shrewd indeed! These guys all need to go to work for the government (you pick the country) with business acumen like this!

[Disco Partisan]

I should add that the variation within the accepted originals (not necessarily regarding size measurements) is pretty astounding when you really look it/them. People talk about print quality, color shades, print variation in these smocks....when you see all manner of variation within the accepted examples including mis-match patterns incorporated and even some gross mis-prints (mainly on zelts) and real color variation between batches or lots. All kinds of buttons used, several different colors and weights of threads used....and different widths of hem seams and pocket edge seams....and more.

print quality and color shades do vary within original examples but there are no print variations - the pattern is always the same. The pink camo pattern has a pretty large area of completely new(fantasy oak) pattern added to it, which you don't see on any original oak pattern. This usually happens with reproductions because (as I heard) post-war printing-rollers are larger than what Germans used during WW2

Reference to this post : http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...postcount=1038

Please note that in the picture it is only a narrow fragment of the whole pattern has been examined and shown but in fact the added area is much wider which means a lot of new oak design was added to the original design

I have compared many original oak patterns of different variations including of different color shades, print quality, materials, etc. the printed pattern is the same.

Can you post an example of any original camo pattern you choose and including any their variations with such difference in their pattern design (different areas) ?

[phild]

print quality and color shades do vary within original examples but there are no print variations - the pattern is always the same. The pink camo pattern has a pretty large area of completely new(fantasy oak) pattern added to it, which you don't see on any original oak pattern. This is usually happens with reproductions because (as I heard) post-war printing-rollers are larger than what Germans used during WW2

Yes you are correct. However, we know and you have stated as well that the SS OL camo made in Norway during the war was also printed in larger rollers and to account for this they elected to reuse ( I called it cut and paste as a joke) an area of the pattern into the repeat space to account of the larger roller or the missing pattern...whichever way you want to look it.

I have asked here several times recently....if these smocks had the same situation either during the war or even if faked in the late 70s (that would be timeframe for a 1980 release....believe me it would have required some REAL set up time then!) either way the pattern maker would have had only two (2) options:
1. Do what the Norwegians did and reuse part of the original pattern to make up the space
2. Improv the missing space by drawing in (and cutting the templates for the rollers accordingly) with an interpretation of the existing pattern for a few cms.

There is nothing that I can see inherent in inproving the design that speaks to post war...although I could agree that it has been used for fakes...it could and IMO would also have been used then for a larger roller situation.
I am looking at this from a production manager standpoint and ALL I see is whether the problem occurred in 1943 or 1978 it could have been handled either way to same satisfactory solution. In 1943 no one was pulling their hair out saying that they 7cm of pattern was not "right"...I promise!

[Disco Partisan]

Ok it is possible, but again it is a bit out of norm.
Same as with Mismatched buttons
Same as No laces
Same as with the source they came from (Floch)
Etc

[Palmenmuster]

Hi,



+1

funny to see that now people are taking the fake russian stamps as "proof" of authenticity, and despite what Robert is saying, the construction, material, design of the pink smocks is proven to be NOT period.

"If and if and if and if and.... (to infinity) = pink smocks are original".

I'm sure that if a chemical test is done on the pink smocks that prove that they are post war fakes, people will still find a way to explain that "a secret company in a secret SS location was producing them starting from May 7, 1945 using advanced chemical components" or "the factory was taken over by the Russians before the end of the war and they started to produce a new model starting from May 7, 1945".

Believers can find as many answers as they want, they can't deny :

- "found" and proposed by Mr. Floch, known as crook and faker
- appearance : late 70's/early 80's
- sold for one third to one fourth of the common price for smocks at the time
- nothing like any other types of original smocks (construction, not reversible)
- exclusive new modified & badly copied Oak Leaf pattern with different colors !
- no period pictures or confirmed sourced smock from archives/veterans
- many different bogus stories used to sell them (Lenfilm, Moscow Museum...)
- "Minsk-Film" stamp from a company/archive no one heard of to date

See You

Vince

I wonder if the American collectors know the Norwegian Oak Leaf Parkas made for the 3. and 4. SS Politikompani and used at the eastern front at the end of the war. Naturally, you dont have any vet bring-backs to confirm them, they are made locally at the company V.C. Møller in Drammen, just outside Oslo. They are made of inferior cloth witch is narrower in with and is longer before it repeats the print.

To the WAF community, it was probably "Found" by me a couple of years ago even they have existed by Norwegian collectors since early -70s when they were to be destructed, sitting in the depot of the Homeguard.

In Norway, they are sold between collectors at approximately 1/4 of a German Smock even when we know they are very rare.

They are constructed in a totally different way than the German.
They differ in color, cloth and construction.
We have period pictures of the parka at the Eastern front because it is easy to see the different construction.

What Im trying to say is, you can't disregard the Pink smock because there are no vet bring-backs or you haven't seen any before.

I have actually 3 Pinks and also different M-38s, M-40s, M-42s .... The Pinks I have is the same size as the others, they are constructed in exact way, they are fully reversible and have similar german buttons. None of them have Russian stamps, one of them is severely used/rodent damaged, the other 2 are almost mint.

From my experience with known original smocks, Norwegian items and the Pinks, I belive they are totally legit late war made in occupied territory occupied by the Russians at he end of war.
Tom

[David Fettes]

Ok it is possible, but again it is a bit out of norm.
Same as with Mismatched buttons
Same as No laces
Same as with the source they came from (Floch)
Etc

Mismatched buttons is not a problem IMO, plenty of Luftwaffe clothing have different pop studs and zippers on the same garment.

As for Herr Floch, even a broken clock tells the correct time twice a day.

As for the print not being the same, the same can be said of this Heer zeltbahn.

[phild]

Ok it is possible, but again it is a bit out of norm.
Same as with Mismatched buttons
Same as No laces
Same as with the source they came from (Floch)
Etc

With all due respect, I have to question if you are really considering some or all these "sticking" points above.

It is for sure that they are come up since the beginning (I mean 2003 not just this thread) and no one can say why non matched is any more indication of non-period manufacture than period manufacture. There would be reason that I could see why some factory in Russia, Ukraine or the Baltic States would receive an allocation of say 4000 (if only 1000 smocks were to be made, but more likely at least 5000 so 20,000 buttons!) buttons from one maker in Germany or how that aspect would have been dealt with.

Same goes for the laces......who knows but what does no laces show? I think it almost 100% that fakes would have come with laces when all other details were addressed so carefully and the lace is so superficial.


Floch was a "hustler" in the positive definition of the expression....this is too mean that he aggressively and creatively sought and turned inventory. A lot of it was repro and I know first hand that he would disclose this at least sometimes...maybe mostly....but he found and sold literally tons of good original items.

It was not always pretty, how he did it, but it is ridiculous to believe just because he has a connection to something, it must be fake......that was not the thinking that I saw as pervasive during the timeframe he was most active and his hijinks good and bad were well known then.
A lot of these dealers who seem almost revered as gods and legends on this forum from back in the 60s-80s were and are no different than Floch in this respect.

[phild]

I wonder if the American collectors know the Norwegian Oak Leaf Parkas made for the 3. and 4. SS Politikompani and used at the eastern front at the end of the war. Naturally, you dont have any vet bring-backs to confirm them, they are made locally at the company V.C. Møller in Drammen, just outside Oslo. They are made of inferior cloth witch is narrower in with and is longer before it repeats the print.

To the WAF community, it was probably "Found" by me a couple of years ago even they have existed by Norwegian collectors since early -70s when they were to be destructed, sitting in the depot of the Homeguard.

In Norway, they are sold between collectors at approximately 1/4 of a German Smock even when we know they are very rare.

They are constructed in a totally different way than the German.
They differ in color, cloth and construction.
We have period pictures of the parka at the Eastern front because it is easy to see the different construction.

What Im trying to say is, you can't disregard the Pink smock because there are no vet bring-backs or you haven't seen any before.

I have actually 3 Pinks and also different M-38s, M-40s, M-42s .... The Pinks I have is the same size as the others, they are constructed in exact way, they are fully reversible and have similar german buttons. None of them have Russian stamps, one of them is severely used/rodent damaged, the other 2 are almost mint.

From my experience with known original smocks, Norwegian items and the Pinks, I belive they are totally legit late war made in occupied territory occupied by the Russians at he end of war.
Tom

Tom,

We all know that if an example of something has NOT been tied to a GI bring-back and if no period photo of it in pre-May 45 use as been published or at least vetted by an authoritative author in a recent reference book......well it just could not have existed in WWII....Pretty simple

Thanks for the excellent post.