BGS Sumpftarn-fieldcap original or copy?

Got this cap as a bonus together with a BGS sumpftarn jacket.
Don't know if its original(BGS custom made like the old Bundesheer camo caps) or copy.
Maybe someone can help....

Commercial. The easiest way to tell is if it is made out of rubberized fabric it is a fake. If it has no liner it is a fake. These have been in production since the 1980s without stop, so there's tons and tons of them.

An original cap (1958-1962 only) usually goes for about $80-$100 if you can find one.

Steve

Thank you for the information.Good that I didn't pay for it.
Damn copies.....  

i have one of these caps too and i just had a frontal roundel sewn in to complete the look and i wonder even though commercial are they made from genuine sumpftarn material ,i compared the inner rubberized side to the same material on my sumpftarn jacket well the waterproof shoulder section where the Y strap passes under ,dose this sound plausable

I'm sure the cloth is original surplussed BGS. It's common to find old stocks of cloth used for such things. Since cloth is the most expensive part of a hat, aside from labor, getting some dirt cheap leftover/misprint cloth makes a lot of sense.

Steve

thank you steve ,great to hear your thoughts on this
cheers james

No problem! And nice bunch of other hats! Especially the blue/gray one. Those of us who managed to land one a few months ago should consider ourselves lucky. And yours looks to be mint condition!

It's possible the green wool M43 is not BGS. Color could be off due to the picture, but to me it seems too green. In any case, in the 1950s and early 1960s there were a bunch of states that wore similar M43s, which makes identification difficult sometimes. Having said that, I'd presume yours to be BGS unless there's a solid reason to think otherwise. If you show me a pic of the label (provided it has one!) I might be able to say more about it.

Nice condition BW Arbeits hat. Hopefully not in Size 53 like some of the ones I have

Steve

Hi steve ,if ok with you im going to do is start my own thread on my items so we can further the discussion so id be gratefull if you could join us when i set it up ,i just dont want to take over mylle's thread completely ,but on topic here is an interesting helmet cover i also have in the same material for my gsg9 helm ,very reminicent of the TR fallschirmjager cover except for the banding around the circumferance ,id like to learn more about the stamp ive never seen sturm stamp any of there products before  

It's no problem when you guys talk over it here.

Sturm these days I believe make a lot of their own repros,some good,some terrible but many years ago all they did is label up original surplus gear with their own labels so who knows James as to your cover is original or not.

Nothing that looks unusual, and is marked in any way with Sturm, should be thought of as original.  While Gulf is correct that they did put their marks on genuine stuff for a time (they still are a major surplus wholeseller last I checked), something like this should be treated as suspect until otherwise verified. Especially brand new looking items.

In this case, it's definitely a fantasy item.  I've never seen one of these before, but there are tons of fake FJ helmet covers out there in various cloth. Since this is obviously made from the same cloth that Sturm used for thousands of hats (they were making them back in the 1980s, BTW), and I don't know of any legitimate items made from it, that right there makes it suspect.  Aside from that, I've never seen BGS use helmet covers at all from 1950s-1970s except for taking the Splintertarn hoods from the very early Zeltbahns and using those during field exercises.  That's some 20 years prior to GSG-9.  Since then, however, GSG-9 did use various camouflage and then solid color helmet covers on their titanium helmets.  The new German Federal Police (what used to be BGS) only use solid color helmet covers as far as I know.

There's also berets out there in Flecktarn, Sumpftarn, and Amoebatarn.  All professionally made and the Amoebatarn ones come complete with genuine 1950s/1960s M43 hat badges.  There's also M43 hats just like that as well.

Hats, helmet covers, and berets are all relatively cheap items to make and have good markets. They also economize the use of cloth, which means you get a lot more out of spare cloth (especially old Zeltbahns) than you do for other items. Less waste = more profits! It's why there is so much activity with these items and not so much with uniforms.

Lots of stuff out there to beware of, but a drop in the bucket compared to the 3rd Reich stuff

Steve

Yeah Miltec-Sturm is a bitch, there are producing a lot of fake fantasy stuff. Last time I've visited my favourite shop in Vienna I saw an interesting Dutch Parka. It had the same cut like the normal DPM parkas but it was in rip stop fabric and a solid blue-gray color. First I thought- maybe Dutch navy? It had everything even the Dutch flag on the right spot. Then I checked the fur liner and the gore tex liner. Same issued stuff like on the DPM parkas but than I saw the tag on the inner side of the parka- Made by Sturm.A shame it looked nice.

Oh and the blue marking on the helmet cover means- Property of Sturm- they are producing and lending stuff for movie productions too.

thank you mylle for allowing this discussion to continue on your thread very good of you ,thank you also richard and steve with the great info regarding sturm ,so this sumpftarn cover would be best thrown in the bin ,i am familiar with the later titainium helmets bearing the pattern covers and true enough had never seen any referance pictures backing up its use on the earlier steel helm but thought it best ask


james

Just found this. Guy has two GSG-9 helmets with what appears to be the STURM covers:

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Helmet-With-Helmet-Cover-Used-GSG9-/252054095995?

Steve

Already in my watch list just as a matter or curiosity(too expensive for me).

Those Blue/Grey M43 hats,any ideas as to what exactly they are,who they were issued to as I now have a few myself and there slight variations,stitched/non stitched peaks and some with side vents,others without.

Also only just realised that I havent got one of the humble plain Olive M43 type caps in my collection!

Many Thanks.

I'd love to see pics of what you have! So far I've only seen two variants:

1. BGS style - five rows of stitching on the bill, one vent hole per side
2. BW style - one row of stitching on the bill, two vent holes per side

The cloth and colors are not exactly the same either, though they are pretty close.

Nobody I know of has figured out exactly what these two hats are. The BGS style one is for sure Einsatanzug (action uniform), but I'm not 100% sure if the example I have as worn by BGS or by a Polizei force. Several Polizei forces wore very similar uniforms and there's almost no photo documentation of them. However, it closely matches BGS uniforms and there are documented photos of a matching hat in use. The reason I'm not sure if mine is BGS or not is the green background bullseye is usually associated with Polizei.

The BW style... heck if I know! My guess is it was worn by non-BW base security personnel. They did wear a uniform which was more blue than the standard BW type and the bullseye is in the BW style.

Steve