Interesting SS officer tunic to study.

[Sonny]

Hi John, sorry for not getting to you sooner, two observations.
With my computer, the green collar has no wear on it where the neck rubs maybe its there but I can't see it,
It had been my experience that the cord piping is "usually" used on overcoats not tunics but as we all know anything is possible on war time tunics.
Just FYI ,lots of luck with it,Sonny

[Bob Hritz]

I have to disagree about the piping, on the shoulder boards. That is late war piping and is most often seen, on original tunics, when they are made of iron gabardine, as is this tunic.

That type of piping has never been faked, to my knowledge, and is of the most desireable type. I have not examined enough SS officer overcoats to make a study, but I would speculate that there is no piping reserved for overcoats.

Bob hritz

[Federico Perez]

By the very pointed shape of the pockets flaps, could this be an Austrian tailor made tunic?

I like this tunic, even as a post war assembled, for the price and sincere provenance of the actual owner it could be a nice representative Waffen SS piece without the Casull 454 cal. hole in the wallet!!!!

[John Pic]

Thaks for the observations,the photos are lacking, but the collar around the top edge is napless due to wear.I apologize for not being more clear that although the tunic is not obviously combat worn it was worn to some extent.Has some staining inside the sleeve and armpit areas. This type material I imagine wears hard.

My Cavalry tunic had cord piped boards too short for a greatcoat as well as the Thule tunic here is a picture. Before them I rarely ever saw this piping.Over on another forum some with little SS cloth experience said this type of piping was bad but a few well known cloth and uniform collectors said definately not bad and probably most desirable to find reflecting Bobs comment. I have only seen a few loose examples of this type since.

[John Pic]

The Cav tunic

[Bob Hritz]

Here is an infantry piped board, with the same piping, on a late war iron gabardine tunic.

Bob Hritz

[phild]

Like JPic said, I see what looks to be wear around the collar fold. It really does not matter because often the use of coller band will prevent it anyway.

In my experience the construction (underside) and the backing material used under the collar are not typical of Austrain made tunics of this period. I'm sure that I have not seen them all, however!

I have also found that a very high percentage of Austrain produced officer tunics had no fixtures for mounting a collar band. It is also true that many late war German officer tunics did not have these either as they were more and more just wearing fixed collar shirts under these.

I think that this tunic is absolutly made as an SS officer's tunic. As in EVERY case the origin of the insignia attachment will be more or less subjective.....assuming that it is not attached with thin cotton/polyester thread and clearly recent.

[John Pic]

At first because of the material I thought Late war..but the Germans and Italians were allies long before the war. Examining it I feel it is more around 40-43.

I found out that it sat in a collection in the US for a long time.

[N.C. Wyeth]

Hi John, sorry for not getting to you sooner, two observations.
With my computer, the green collar has no wear on it where the neck rubs maybe its there but I can't see it,
It had been my experience that the cord piping is "usually" used on overcoats not tunics but as we all know anything is possible on war time tunics.
Just FYI ,lots of luck with it,Sonny

Sonny,

I've meant to snap this pic for a while - here are two versions of piping for SS Officer boards (slip-on style even!) that I currently own. Thought you fellas might like to see these . . .

Brad

[N.C. Wyeth]

and another . . .

[Bob Hritz]

Brad,

Both are very nice original SS shoulder boards.

Bob Hritz

[John Pic]

and dont forget the third type of the wool with fuzzy nap.

[Sonny]

Hi Brad, nice boards, thanks for sharing. Sonny

[N.C. Wyeth]

and dont forget the third type of the wool with fuzzy nap.

Like these?