Waffen SS Visor - pre war? - opinions

[Mike C]

Hello all,

As a complete novice to W-SS caps, may I ask if the concern about logos is an issue with W-SS NCO caps? The recent assault gun grouping I purchased included a NCO visor with logo - I am not at all worried about it but wonder if fake NCO caps are predominately logo marked as well.

Happy to show images of the cap if anyone is interested.

Mike

[Ian Hulley]

wonder if fake NCO caps are predominately logo marked as well.

Not wishing to pre-empt the experts comments but most Waffen-SS NCO caps would be contract manufactured and issued to them and therefore have the russet-brown oil cloth lining, marked only with the size. Of course many private purchase caps would have been available and marked by their creators.

Happy to show images of the cap if anyone is interested.

Mike

You're very brave

Ian

[N.C. Wyeth]

I would love to see a close up of the piping, sweatband stitching, and sweatband leather..

Dave,

I would like to see more of your cap as well - especially these points. Please let us see better photos . . . I kind of like your cap, but if you're going to offer it in example, and leave us with such a troubling lack of detail, to what benefit are your comments?

Be a good sport, won't you?

Brad

[DKNYC71]

Waffen SS Visor - pre war? - opinions

Dave,

I would like to see more of your cap as well - especially these points. Please let us see better photos . . . I kind of like your cap, but if you're going to offer it in example, and leave us with such a troubling lack of detail, to what benefit are your comments?

Be a good sport, won't you?

Brad

Brad,

With all due respect, I am very comfortable with my cap, I do not need to start phtographing my hat(s) and start posting a collage of detailed photos since there are plenty of detailed photos on this forum to illustrate Kleiderkasse type of visors: http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...officers+visor The topic of this thread is not to judge 'my hats' or 'show-off my hats', I had the photos I posted already taken and that is why I posted them on this thread to simply and briefly illustrate one type of a KleiderKasse 'cap interior'.

Although I have visors in better more prestine condition, I love this cap because it has "been there", it is rich with history, being named and having solid provenance. In fact when the hat emerged with the officers uniform out of the woodwork, there was the officers paperwork and various dispatch orders and travel asssignments. It is amazing what the vets brought back home to the US which they scavanged from various homes in Germany.

As a side note, a very knoweledgible collector stated "Out of 18 years of collecting visors very few maker mark ones make the grade. What they don't get is there are talented fakers that can take a Heer and whip it into an SS with almost no flaws. Well at least to most collectors. The Heer never used unmarked private purchase caps so a Kleiderkasse is for the most part either 100% post war or 100% war time. It is that simple." I just thought of sharing this comment that a very astute SS collector 'PM'd' me with last night as a response to reading this thread.

Again, I wish everyone all the best in finding nice original SS visor hats of the Kleiderkasse variety. And if it is maker marked, inspect it very well, and go over everything with a fine tooth comb, it is a mine field.

Cheers & Merry Christmas,

Dave.

[David T]

Mike C, If you dont mind posting Iwould like to see your assualt gun gruoping. Maybe another thread would be appropiate. Thanks, Dave T.

[N.C. Wyeth]

With all due respect, I am very comfortable with my cap, I do not need to start phtographing my hat(s) and start posting a collage of detailed photos . . .

Dave.

For some reason, I thought that might be how you would respond . . .

Brad

P.S. Sure, most everything you mention about collecting SS caps could be considered common knowledge around here by now - but with such a high-end collection to brag about, I thought you might have had something more miraculous to contribute for the cheap-seat crowd to enjoy . . .

[dhunter93]

[quote=DKNYC71;2998756]Brad,


Although I have visors in better more prestine condition, I love this cap because it has "been there", it is rich with history, being named and having solid provenance.

talented fakers that can take a Heer and whip it into an SS with almost no flaws. Well at least to most collectors.










My question would be "been where" , please post those photo's.........

[bnz. 42]

My question would be "been where" , please post those photo's.........

"THERE"! You don't understand: vets liked to pick up "salty" pieces. And it is not poor storage in a basement after the war! It is honest "been-there-look"! SS-officer actually worn that on his head because he was saving money and did not want to spend for "Private-purchase-cap-with-logo" after all the officer knew the difference between Kleiderkasse and "worthless junk"..

Here is one of my visors, it is a Kleiderkasse variety made from Italian wool.

[DKNYC71]

Waffen SS Visor - pre war? - opinions

For some reason, I thought that might be how you would respond . . .

Brad

P.S. Sure, most everything you mention about collecting SS caps could be considered common knowledge around here by now - but with such a high-end collection to brag about, I thought you might have had something more miraculous to contribute for the cheap-seat crowd to enjoy . . .

I will not be called out into this common nonsense which often persits in cases like this, you asked to see something, I showed it, I am not bragging about anything at all, if I touched upon any of your or anyone else's insecurities, that was not my intention. Neither is it to share my collection with any Tom, Dick, and Harry, who comes along. I guess that is the reason folks like Toncar, Delich, and many others do not flaunt their collections here, and even folks like Mike Davis and Wili Zahn do it very sparingly. Again, I am not bragging, and judging by the PMs which I received from astute collectors in response to my postings on this thread, I have said all I had to say in a very diligent polite articulated manner. And some people will always find stupidity to come back with. On this note I will end my participation in this thread. But feel free to post away as much of your collection as possible, perhaps there are many on this thread who have thus been very active that will appreciate it.

Merry Christmas!

[BenVK]

As a side note, a very knoweledgible collector stated "Out of 18 years of collecting visors very few maker mark ones make the grade. What they don't get is there are talented fakers that can take a Heer and whip it into an SS with almost no flaws. Well at least to most collectors. The Heer never used unmarked private purchase caps so a Kleiderkasse is for the most part either 100% post war or 100% war time. It is that simple." I just thought of sharing this comment that a very astute SS collector 'PM'd' me with last night as a response to reading this thread.

Again, I wish everyone all the best in finding nice original SS visor hats of the Kleiderkasse variety. And if it is maker marked, inspect it very well, and go over everything with a fine tooth comb, it is a mine field.

Cheers & Merry Christmas,

Dave.

I was going to respond to this thread with the question why a cap bought through the Kleiderkasse would be more desirable than one from an outlet outside that cooperative but Dave has already pointed out the reason for most collectors. It's the safe bet. I do find this puzzling however because for anyone genuinely interested in this area, the opportunity to own a genuine private purchase ss visor complete with maker markes, which is quite obviously the rarer animal, would seem to me to be the more desirable option. Putting aside the concerns about re-sale opportunities, why wouldn't anyone confident in their own judgement, not pick the rarer of the two? I'm not having a dig at anyone's preference, that's their choice but if we're talking soley about which type of cap should be the most collectable, it must be the absolute private purchase one. Actually, private purchase is a misnomer anyway. For Officers, they were all private purchase, it's just that you had the choice of buying a cheaper cap through the Kleiderkasse for which you had to pay an annual subscription and be at the mercy of the systems delivery promise which was far from being reliable from what I've read or buy a cap from whoever you wanted if you had money to burn.
So, when you think about it, the true aristocrats of the SS would never have been seen buying anything from the Kleiderkasse, heaven forbid no. That was for the not so well off. You can see evidence of this not only in the SS Officer classes but in all branches of the Third Reich and also seen in NCO uniforms in period photos and collections today that are of superior cloth and construction. It was all a matter of status.
Forget regulations. If you had money and connections, regardless of rank, I think it's pretty obvious that you could buy and wear whatever you wanted to a large degree.
Now, is the cap in question junk? no, of coruse not. If it's genuine, regardless of condition, it's still a valuable piece of TR history, end of. Anyone rubbishing an original item because of mothing or repair has lost the plot IMO. That just sounds like a commodity investor weighing up weither its worth investing in a certain stock or not to make money out of it. Don't get me wrong, you have to consider the re-sale value with these things, it's still a lot of money after all, but calling it junk is obsurbed. The only other element is whether the price, for you, is fair? I thought it was fair and worth a look and obviously someone else thought the same because it's sold now.

[N.C. Wyeth]

Dave,

Please don't take my comments outside of the manner in which they were intended - I know exactly the fear you speak of, unjust or not . . . I really had hopes that for once, we might have found SOMEBODY with the brass it takes to show a little more in depth that which they speak of so knowingly regarding the Kleiderklasse cap - lately, not having someone this courageous around seems to have become the curse of collecting . . . we often hear about the heat associated with collecting SS caps, but no longer do we have anyone willing to brave the fire - including the names of those to which you refer.

Such a shame, as I really ejoyed the images you posted (and of all the other images as well!), and I would have enjoyed seeing more from you in depth - at one time I too had a few caps that could possibly have been considered siblings to yours. I would have really enjoyed seeing the similarities, I think. If I still had the caps in my collection, without a doubt I could have been persuaded to share in mutual respect . . . but then again, I'm sure the subject of the Kleiderklasse cap has been much exhausted previously here in past discussion, has it not?

For what it's worth, I still liked the images of the cap in question that originally started this conversation . . .

Merry Christmas to you as well . . . and by the way - nice cap!

Brad

[DKNYC71]

Waffen SS Visor - pre war? - opinions

Dave,

Please don't take my comments outside of the manner in which they were intended - I know exactly the fear you speak of, unjust or not . . . I really had hopes that for once, we might have found SOMEBODY with the brass it takes to show a little more in depth that which they speak of so knowingly regarding the Kleiderklasse cap - lately, not having someone this courageous around seems to have become the curse of collecting . . . we often hear about the heat associated with collecting SS caps, but no longer do we have anyone willing to brave the fire - including the names of those to which you refer.

Such a shame, as I really ejoyed the images you posted (and of all the other images as well!), and I would have enjoyed seeing more from you in depth - at one time I too had a few caps that could possibly have been considered siblings to yours. I would have really enjoyed seeing the similarities, I think. If I still had the caps in my collection, without a doubt I could have been persuaded to share in mutual respect . . . but then again, I'm sure the subject of the Kleiderklasse cap has been much exhausted previously here in past discussion, has it not?

For what it's worth, I still liked the images of the cap in question that originally started this conversation . . .

Merry Christmas to you as well . . . and by the way - nice cap!

Brad

Fair Enough Brad, if you desire to see images of any particular kind of cap, PM me, and we can share images, when I have a chance over the holiday season to take some pictures I would be more than happy to share knoweledge and images with you.

This 'anoynomous' forum bashing is very low class, I am not G-d forbid implying that you were part of this, just that it is the sort of nensense that persists here, so why post anything to try to teach those who are not looking to learn, only to mock and ridicule beacuse that is the zenith of their daiily life. They come home, logon to the WAF, find threads where they can throw around short iliterate satements, call people out to argue moot points, for the sake of arguing, they rarely have anything good to add. In fact, if one was to look at their past postings, all you see is a similar patern of behaviour complimented with rude undertones.

I will look forward to hearing from you.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

[Mike C]

Well...this thread seems to be going south but, for what it is worth, I will post pictures of the SS NCO visor I just received as part of a great grouping (I think Ben will recognize it).

Mike

[Mike C]

Cap...

[Mike C]

Other views...