BRD visors

[Sergeant 08]

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[Sergeant 08]

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[Sergeant 08]

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[Gordon Craig]

Sergeant 08,

We covered these caps on my thread on the BW Luftwaffe uniforms. These caps have gone for 200 Euros lately. I feel that is over priced but the market dictates that.

Regards,

Gordon

[Bone Collector]

Originally Posted by SprogCollector

Hi Flecktarn,
Welcome to BRD!

Officer caps (Heer and Luftwaffe) prior to 1962 had the same plain black visors as the enlisted caps.

Here I have a real early heer officer cap, dated 24.4.1956, which would be in the first few months of the bundeswehr.

I hade no idea of the visor situation until now. I assume my cap must have been updated in 1962, proving that it's been in service for at least 6 years.

However, the condition is not so good.







/Mikael

[SprogCollector]

Nice hat and a great one to discuss. The early date is great. Congrats! The part I find particularly interesting is the cap shape. I would have expected to see the 'tellerform' style at this point in time. Clearly the cap shown has the more familiar saddle shape.

Upgraded items from the very early years of the Bundeswehr are/were quite common.

[Gordon Craig]

Originally Posted by Bone Collector

Here I have a real early heer officer cap, dated 24.4.1956, which would be in the first few months of the bundeswehr.

I hade no idea of the visor situation until now. I assume my cap must have been updated in 1962, proving that it's been in service for at least 6 years.

However, the condition is not so good.







/Mikael

Mikael,

For the age of your cap it look pretty good to me. The cap band on these early caps had a habit of turning from the original grey to a sort of pink/brown shade like yours has. The shape of the body appears to be ok as well. I would be pleased to own this cap. Thanks for posting pictures of it.

Regards,

Gordon

[Hugh Zillmann old]

Hello Everyone,

Really beautiful cap, Bone Collector. Good year, too. My favourite - 1956.

I must now confess a sin.

In 1982 I acquired two of these from a local 'junk store'. Total cost: Aus $25.

Thereafter I destroyed both by converting them into WW2-style Luftwaffe Officers' Schirmutzen. I kept the peak from one (having thrown the other away, of course) and added it to a naval schirmutze I had (Bundesmarine, similar date, for which I had both the blue and white tops - mint!) and then created another repro schirmutze. I sold one of my 'knock-offs' for Aus$70, thus recovering my investment. I had, of course, completely destroyed three (now) relatively rare and collectable pieces of early Bundeswehr headgear.

I have kept the two others. I look at them from time to time. If I could reach, I'd kick myself in the backside - hard and often.

I was twenty-six and I wanted to play WW2 German pilot/U-Boat Kapitan.

Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.

Regards,

Hugh

[Asbjoern]

Hugh, you must not feel ashamed... it´s not long ago (maybe also 27 years) that BGS splinter-camo trousers where sold of as working suit. And nobody wanted to wear camo at this time...it would have been uncool... so they where really cheap and only used for dirty work where they decayed fast ... last week a worn BGS camo trouser went of at ebay for something around 350 Euro...

Jens

[Gordon Craig]

Hugh,

Confession is good for the soul!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am sure that since this "incident" you have rescued many other collectable BW pieces.

Cheers,

Gordon

[speedytop]

Hi SprogCollector,

"I would have expected to see the 'tellerform' style at this point in time. Clearly the cap shown has the more familiar saddle shape."

The important difference is the contour, round or oval. That changed early in 1956. Officially confirms in July 1956, but earlier carried out.
Therefore it could be, that it is not the first (round) form.

Please see the picture for the differences:



Left the first (round) form in 1955 and a short time in 1956.
Second the next (oval) form.
As the last a later form.

Uwe

[SprogCollector]

Hugh,
Don't feel too bad. I did the same thing back in the 80's. Converted a 60's LW schirm into a WW2 visor by transplanting the visor from an enlisted cap onto it and dying the cap band black.

Fast-forward 20 years and I'm wishing I had just left it alone.

[SprogCollector]

Originally Posted by speedytop

Hi SprogCollector,

"I would have expected to see the 'tellerform' style at this point in time. Clearly the cap shown has the more familiar saddle shape."

The important difference is the contour, round or oval. That changed early in 1956. Officially confirms in July 1956, but earlier carried out.
Therefore it could be, that it is not the first (round) form.

Please see the picture for the differences:



Left the first (round) form in 1955 and a short time in 1956.
Second the next (oval) form.
As the last a later form.

Uwe

Hi Uwe,
Excellent visual explanation!

I just checked my early LW caps. The one with the plain visor shares the oval shape with the cap in the center of your image. My 1968-dated cap has the later-style oval. When I place the two caps back-to-back, the earlier model has a considerably wider top -- at least 2cm. Both are the same size (56). Neither are the rundform/tellerform. Considering how short-lived the tellerform caps are, was Luftwaffe even using blue caps at this point or were Heer/Luftwaffe both using the original grey uniforms?

[speedytop]

Thr first colour for Heer and Luftwaffe was schiefergrau (slate grey).

It changed in February 1957.

Heer hellgrau (light grey) for the jacket, dunkelgrau (dark grey) for the trousers.

Luftwaffe both blaugrau (bluish gray).

Uwe

[SprogCollector]

Hi Uwe,
More great info. Thanks!

So, from a collecting standpoint it would reason that the only Tellerform caps would be the Schiefergrau caps. For Luftwaffe Schirmmützen, the very earliest blau-grau caps would be oval-shape with possibly metal cap badges (presuming one could find a cap that hadn't been upgraded over time)?

Does anyone have an example of a General officer or field grade officer cap from before 1961? I'm curious to see what was on the visors.