FAKE SS Smock

[kammo man]

If you put one clean pink beside one original war time oak ...........
you would see the difference in a hear beat .......

the quality of the fabric itself is quite pathetic for a start , not to mention the printing and colors .......

[pete]

Now follow the arrow on the flowchart to was it possible to have smocks made with inferior material, Yes, and now to any known originals?...to HBT in at least 2 patterns have been observed (with the question in your head what if these just appeared in 2012 for the first time). Now, follow arrow back to the begining, is it original, Yes. Move to Is it made with inferior material? Yes...ok..now to are there known examples with provenence...no, is there photo or other evidence? No.....and here we find ourselves in between boxes trying to narrow it down forensically, like we should be doing. Or is the earth flat?

Now we also have a seperate flowchart for people who think they have seen everything that has ever existed so far, automatically discredit and bypass things which have never been seen or proved yet, with no surviving examples and no photo evidence to support them. Was it possible (would they have?) to make a smock with inferior material....naw, impossible.....move arrow to no way because I just know because i know.

Pete

[phild]

RobertE " Good luck on the reasonable proof. Multiple threads have failed to produce it, and if it existed, it would surely have surfaced in these heated discussions by now."

Robert it is discouraging at one level, but I have been just as surprised that reasonable proof that these are post war has not come forth either. These stamps that Pete is posting about are very important evidence of the origin of these smocks. I know the stamps were in the smocks when they came in to the West and not added to embellish them...I know that 100%. These smocks are either captured German WWII stock or they were made up by a Soviet costume supplier in the mid 40s-1970s.....and so marked......that is if the stamps are form movie/theater and NOT museum. I would be floored to find out for sure that these would/could have been made in this detail for movie props in the USSR (or anywhere else) during that time frame.

Originally Posted by kammo man

If you put one clean pink beside one original war time oak ...........
you would see the difference in a hear beat .......

the quality of the fabric itself is quite pathetic for a start , not to mention the printing and colors .......

I can say almost exactly the same things about the center seam HBT SS smocks that all agree are 100% period original......well except that the fabric used in the pink smocks is much better than HBT and and that the pink smocks do not have the true pink color in them that the HBT types do.

[RobertE]

I agree with you. My point is that with the amount of passion this discussion has taken on, I believe that no one is holding back evidence.

Unless the markings are different from those posted and pored over, we have seen these stamps - they have been posted for discussion. Their purpose has not been proven, just speculated on.

I have definately not seen it all, and look forward to seeing what eventually surfaces as proof - but we don't have it yet. I can tell you I toured dozens of smaller museums in the Soviet Union, some of which were in "closed" military towns, and saw any number of property and inventory markings.
And I was in Leningrad when it changed to St Pete, and carried on for months afterward - I was already "friends" with the curators and knew their inventories, for the most part.

Some markings were used for a few decades, and then switched out for other accounting methods, their purpose forgotten. Items were loaned, in bulk, to movie houses which like the museums were also state run at the time. I saw beautiful tunics with hand inked numbers so they could be accounted for when they were returned - same with equipment.

My point is that we don't know what we don't know. Just to add something besides conjecture to the discussion, which we've had over and over again, I'll take some pictures of a specimen of the smock under discussion and a zelt. At least that will dispel one myth: the quaility of the zelt is no better than the smock.

s/f Robert

[RobertE]

To debunk the myth of poor quality: the smock woven cotton is similiar in thickness and weave pattern of a zelt. I'm not sure of the square inch count, but they are similiar. In hand, it is at least on par with the zelt for quality.

[RobertE]

These are not "pink" either. The one I kept has been washed, it looks like, and all the colors have lost their vibrance. The shade difference between the zelt and the smock is not dramatic, even so.

[RobertE]

There are even similarities in the pattern...

[phild]

Thank you for the posts, they show both the points that have been often brought up about the color and the actual quality of the duck when compared side by side to some original examples of mid to later war SS camo items.

I know that you also posted a good thread on the mis-print aspect found on some of these and on just the pocket flap or flaps of others just like known German made camo sometimes exhibts.....but your post got no responses.

I disagree with you maybe only on one point that you have made and that is that the truth on these will never be known. I beleive that it will. The stamps I beleive will be a big break in these if the institution using that stamp is identified.

[kammo man]

This was also called "Brick" pattern back before "pink" became the norm .

[phild]

Originally Posted by kammo man

This was also called "Brick" pattern back before "pink" became the norm .

Of course for the reasons illustrated in Robert's post above I have always rejected the term "pink" smock. but I have used it in these threads just to make it simpler.

I don't know one way or the other about these being called brick patten in the early years......I first heard of brick pattern being used for a type of smock back in the later 70s (I think that I recall that a the time frame) in reference to a published modern photo of what was supposed to be an experimental or limited issue SS smock with a sort of reddish brick inspired pattern to be used in urban settings! I think that this may have originated in the U.K. at the time and it was later de-bunked as a fantasy item and concept........at any rate I have seen the pattern in color photos (modern NOT period) and that is what they were being called.

I do think that the smocks in question are much more reddish than pink....I can actually find no color in them that I consider pink.....unlike much other SS camo that is fully accepted as original.

[RobertE]

Whether we refer to these as brick or pink, it is a collector term only. I agreed with Phild that these are no more "off" in color than any of the plethora of shades used by the SS, and others.

What I did want to stop was the reference to poor quality material - it isn't. Similiarly, the print quality is every bit as good on the smock as on the oak zelt I posted. I can post more pictures of the pattern, but it should be visible in the photos I already put up.

Let's focus on real points of discussion, not circular posting of false "facts". These may be replica, but they are made of quality material with a very good print pattern that closely emulates the oak zelt I posted.

[phild]

For me the problem or difference in the colors used in these has never been about the reddish hue that many call pink.....but is not......as this is very close to many other shades found in SS camo items....the same with the purple and rust colors used in these....and the Greens.......BUT the strange color too me is the blueish grays used in the areas that are often found to be much darker on standard oak SS camo...

I think that the major truth to consider with these smocks (whether real or fake) is that they were NOT printed or made at the source(s) (factory and maybe even country) of other known SS smocks.....and therefore are different in many details as was always the case with wartime variations and is true with fakes. Compound this fact with the authentication process of direct comparison 1:1 with known GERMAN original smocks and presto anyone seeing that there are a number of differences between the two.......and then many conclude that the different one has to be fake.....because it is different.

For me the problems with this conclusion is that differences do not add up to fake...they in fact make little sense as a fake and most every discovered fake that I have seen adds up to tell a story of a fake.....these do not thus far for many reasons that I and others have tried to bring out.

Just because they do not add up to be like any other fake piece of cloth that I know of does not make them real....I say that loudly here, but just because they do not monkey point for point a German produced SS oak leaf smock does not make them fake......so that is one reason I and others really want to get to the bottom of the pocket stamps.......

[bubaku]

I see that type of smock since mid 80's

Many collectors buy for original late war model found in rep CZ
military depot.

in my opinion is not original from Waffen SS in second w.w.

is a copy or an early postwar production

[pete]

Well if there is any indicator which we could use to start to try and connect them with pre 1945, or place them pre 1945, or pre some period, then for me it would be the stamps. Bearing in mind if the exact origin's of the stamp become known, and, to connect them with other peices of known and accepted original items (from any branch of service). The marked Dot pants are very important currently and I still await info from the owner as well as info on the supposed other items also existing with these stamps in photo form. The other way would be the chemical tests (but this doesnt seem to be happening) on the dyes in relation to known histroical dye indicators to try and place them on a chemical historical time line. Then there is the similiarities info like Richard has posted pattern and material, the known evidence that in fact other Smocks were made on what we would consider sub standard material (if they appeared today with no provenance they ma y very well be treated like this Pink/brick smock) but yet quality of production (for a fake way before a market for doing this?), the total differences compared to known smocks and all that goes with that. How we could just proclaim fake right now is beyond me. There are likely lots of items nobody has ever seen yet, or which were completely destroyed and then as we all know there are the items which many people have, totaly good and with provenance which would never be accepted with the rigid criteria applied (to protect peoples money) to accepted items. These are really interesting to me simply because nobody, including all the people on this forum and outside this forum who have eons of years of experience and cant answer all these questions yet. I mean really, none of us can. We can only keep digging and thinking from the various time periods associated with these or just think from the now, point at what we understand and know and simply proclaim fake and or also add a myriad of simple comments without reading the whole posts or the several posts on these fully.

Pete

[pete]

Sorry Robert has posted, not Richard! Sorry Robert!

Pete