Description
Product Description: This SS Officer Side Cap is an extremely nice example of a very hard to find cap. The exterior of the cap is made from a very attractive fine gabardine fabric, and shows the classic regulation SS cut. The gabardine is clean, with no staining and no damage except for perhaps one small area on the side where there seems to be a slight thread pull, that is almost unnoticeable. The edge of the turn-down flap is piped all the way around with silver metallic wire piping, indicating officer rank. The front of the cap boasts a complete set of insignia. The SS eagle and swastika emblem and the Totenkopf skull are both Bevo machine woven versions, made of cotton, with silver-gray emblems on a black backing. All of the insignia is original to the cap, expertly applied with tailor quality hand stitching as is typical. Inside, this gorgeous SS Officer Side Cap shows no evidence of wear. The lining is a grey cotton twill. The forehead area features a completely intact partial leather sweatband that shows original color with no age or usage toning. There is no maker mark, which is exactly what one would want to see on an SS cap like this. The lining is size stamped “56” in ink. This very desirable cap would be very tough to upgrade, and displays handsomely. The condition rates as excellent, bordering on near mint.
Historical Description: The “sidecap” was a part of the uniform worn by nearly all military, paramilitary, political and civil organizations in the Third Reich. It was a narrow hat that could be folded flat and tucked into a belt or haversack. This was, at the time, a very stylish type of uniform cap; in the German Army, it replaced the round “pork pie” style of field cap used in the Great War. The German name for this cap, in most organizations, was “Feldmütze”- field cap. Despite the name, it was often worn as a daily service cap by postal workers and other personnel who would never be deployed to the field. The men and women who wore the sidecap gave it the nickname “Schiffchen,” meaning little boat, due to its shape. The sidecaps were made in the same type of fabric as the uniforms, in the uniform color particular to each organization. The sidecaps were adorned with branch-specific insignia, usually bearing some form of the German eagle and swastika national emblem. Many sidecaps also bore red, white and black national cockades. The insignia were usually embroidered or woven, but metal devices were used on some caps as well. Officer caps generally were distinguished by silver braid along the top edge and/or on the upper part of the flap at the front of the cap and were often custom tailored from fine fabrics. The German military, and many other organizations, had broadly replaced the sidecap with a new, more practical cap featuring a brim, by 1943. But the sidecap continued to be worn by some troops until the end of the war.
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