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HG-22 Army Other Ranks Panzer Model 1934 (Garrison
Cap), French Made
A very interesting – though also very salty - example of an
Army Panzer Model 1934. The cap is made from field grey wool, and the
construction looks somewhat piecemeal in terms of the material sections –
something commonly found on French-made caps. This piece of headgear bears the
faint stamped remains of the French maker “Chapdelaine Parisienne Paris”
(the first word is slightly illegible) on the interior – a maker name usually
found associated with Navy and Coastal Artillery cloth headgear. The
field grey wool is heavily soiled, to the point where some areas are actually
more brown than field grey. The cap follows the German construction
pattern for the most part but was made by French workers. Many of this
French-produced headgear was in fairly small sizes and was left in
stock because there weren't enough military personnel to issue them to. So
instead of just allowing them to sit around, they were factory modified to make
them a larger size. I have seen hundreds of examples of this over the years.
However, I have not seen many that ended up being issued to the Heer.
This cap has a couple of very small moth holes and a small hole along the
top panel’s right side seam where some threads may have given way. The cap
eagle is machine woven in (soiled) mouse grey thread (on dirty) field grey. It
has a slightly frayed look around the curve of the wreath. It has a machine
woven (BeVo) style cockade on the dark blue/green backing, shaped to a diamond.
This is applied up under the apex of a pink Panzer branch soutache, which is
correctly applied. The cap interior is lined in the usual tan colored, thin
muslin-like fabric – though this too, does not reach all the way to the rear
of the cap; an “end-cap” section is added in brown rayon, to complete the
lining. The muslin part of the lining is heavily soiled – or at least it shows
this clearly. The circular maker’s stamp appears on this fabric (left side),
while another, large stamp with the town “Nantes” appears on the right side.
An undeniably intriguing piece of front-made Army headgear.
$850.00
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Item HG-70
