SS M43 camouflage cap, opinions?

[kammo man]

Hi John,
I know, but Owen based his opinion on the first bad quality pictures. The last pictures are much better and more complete. As you can see I am not a starter to the military and SS market. I have done my research very well before buying this rare and much copied cap. I have no doubts to it.

No
Even the crappy pictures told me the cap was not war time made.
I am sorry if you payed alot for this cap but in my opinion its not a real war time camp made item.

owen

[espenlaub]

However inside of the visor must be rubberized paper- preßstoff, not a cardboard. And if you are asking about other things. You need to post closeups of your SS visors, due there is a lot of fakes around

[Lostwith]

Personally, I like the cap and would have said it was good. But Owen is the expert and if he doesn't, then you'll have a hard time convincing anyone
Regards
John

Dear Kammo man,

could you give us any proof, that visors of such camo caps, as you said, should have inside of their peaks an ANIMAL SKIN...?


Regards

Lostwith

[clint-magnum]

Looks like a large number of those oakleaf caps turned up ...
however I like the construction .

if they are obvious fakes , let us know where to find them so easily !

[90th Light]

Dear Kammo man,

could you give us any proof, that visors of such camo caps, as you said, should have inside of their peaks an ANIMAL SKIN...?

Regards

Lostwith

Early SS cammo caps, perhaps the very first ones made can have leather as the form/ shaper for the visor. This is what one would find inside the cloth covering.

It is a form of "Rawhide", an animal skin that has not been exposed to tanning. It is similar to parchment, much lighter in color than leather made by traditional vegetable tanning. The material is hard and translucent. It can be shaped by re-wetting and forming before being allowed to thoroughly re-dry. It may also be oiled or greased for a degree of waterproofing and thought to be more durable than leather. Rawhide is more susceptible to water than leather, and it quickly softens and stretches if left wet unless quality waterproofed. It can be rendered more pliable and can bent over time into the disired shape of a cap visor.

However, keep in mind that such inner form/ shaper inside the visor of an SS camo cap is very rare and only seen on early caps. It is in the same league as finding an SS camo cap with the green and brown SS badges on both sides. Perhaps not as rare as the badges but it was from that that early period and was becoming scarce in Germany in the mid-war period until it was basically impossible to get later in the war.

It would be very interesting to know if anyone has a SS camo cap or M43 cap with a form/ shaper for the cloth visor made from tanned vegetable leather ?

Increasingly as the war progressed, the Germans made the bill form/ shaper of an M43 type cap was made from an ersatz material. The cloth would then be sewn over this to make the bill of the cap.

"Preßstoff (Presstoff) is a type of ersatz or replacement leather used during the first half of the 20th century. Made of specially layered and treated paper pulp, Presstoff was durable and easily adapted to be used in place of leather. First invented in the 19th century, it gained its widest use in Germany during the Second World War

Presstoff use included but was not limited to binoculars cases and straps, horse tack, bayonet frogs, equipment belts, cap visors etc. In short, Presstoff could be used in almost every application normally filled by leather, excepting items like footwear that were repeatedly subjected to flex wear and/or moisture. Under these conditions Presstoff tended to delaminate and lose cohesion."

When they could not get Presstoff they used other ersatz materials like early forms of plastic. Have a read of this thread to see what I mean;

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...=cap+bill+made

What is inside the bill of an SS camo cap or M43 camo can be a bit of science in its own right,


Chris