Second War cap collectors, I need your "eyes" on this Imperial Marine cap!

[Tony & Kaiser]

This is an Imperial cap, but it has an interesting characteristic I wanted to run past you TR (Third Reich) collecting types, as you tend to be more informed on cap variations.

I am not a novice, I collected TR for 25 years and was one of the first to expose the Janke caps as replicas here in Canada. Combining my TR time with Imperial and I have collected pre 1945 German caps now for 32 years. But this cap has me stumped.

I just received a rather nice Imperial German Kaiserliche-Marine cap. It came from a very good friend who has had it for many years (really!). It is private purchase. Typical material on the exterior.

[Tony & Kaiser]

Typical lighter blue top lining. A correct and aged period Imperial manufacturer's mark for a Kaiserliche-Marine supplier. Typical leather sweatband with the private purchase ribbon "cinch" which is only found in marine caps. Textbook Reich's Kokarde, never removed. Correct gold tarnished cap tally. A big ol' sniff of the inside, and it smells like it should; old. It passes all the black light and thread burns tests, which I did only after seeing the next feature.

[Tony & Kaiser]

I flipped up the leather sweatband just for a look, and almost fell off the chair. On most marine caps the band stiffener is cardboard, or there is no stiffener at all. Get this: the stiffener in this cap is celluloid! Identical to TR sweat diamonds. It is quite stiff, or "brittle" is the term I used in TR collecting, It has not been "added" as sewing it now I believe it would shatter.

[Tony & Kaiser]

This is very odd, but not impossible. (?) Celluloid was introduced in 1863 and was well established by 1900 in use for movie film. It is commonly found on such things as 1st war gas mask lenses, map cases etc etc. It would have been quite innovative to use a strip of celluloid for the band, as unlike cardboard it is water-proof, thin, and retains it's shape.

The maker's mark and the lack of a celluloid sweat diamond places the cap in the 1914 to 18 period, not too many years before the habit of placing celluloid sweat diamonds came into practice. The cap is correct in every way. It cannot be a copy as no-one in their right mind would make an absolutely perfect cap and then use a celluloid band stiffener? Nor is it from another time as it has an imperial German Marine supplier's mark. Has anyone ever seen or hear of anything like this? Thanx, Tony

[RoyA]

Hi Tony,
Considering that celluloid was available in WWI and the maker mark is correct for Kaiserliche-Marine, I have to conclude that your cap is just fine.
Celluloid was used in Kriegsmarine caps for the most obvious reason, that being moisture, so it's reasonable to assume that celluloid was used in Kaiserliche-Marine caps for the same reason...they would not use cardboard if there were an alternative available.
The leather sweatband with the private purchase ribbon "cinch" is absolutely correct for marine.
Roy