Marshal's M35 cap--real?

[LeeG]

Hey fellas,
I came across this M35 Marshal's cap from an online dealer's site. Is it real? It seems a little too good to be true, but it looks okay to me.
-Lee

Here is a side view.

And an inside view. It looks like it has some sort of studio markings inside.

[new world]

What makes you think it's Marshal's cap?

[DougD]

It looks ok to me, though i would like to get a closer look at the stampings to see if they were museum or film studio.

Its a Marshals cap because only they had the red cap band at the time, "generals" at the time had the magenta infantry color.

I sold a really nice M1935 pullover of Voroshilov that was the same color, it was a common secondary color for marshals service uniforms from 1935 until 1943.

DougD

[sovvisor]

I have stolen another pic from that site. Sometimes I judge on what else the seller have for sale if a thing is genuine. I post here a pic of a M35 airforce tunic. Maybe we can decide whether this is genuine or not. The price on the marshals cap is very nice.
What do you think of the tunic.
Best

[LeeG]

Looking at the site, the German stuff does NOT look good to me. The German tunics look like they were made of similar material, the camo helmets look like they were painted last week, the panzer sidecap is missing the hard-to-fake grommets. Not good.
The Soviet stuff on the other hand looks pretty good to me. I think these guys may be honest fellows that get fooled by the multitude of crooks in their area on occasion, but also have some genuine stuff on hand as well.

Sovvisor,
I kind of like the look of this air force tunic, myself. But I really don't know enough about these to be able to tell for sure. Doug, any thoughts?
-Lee

Originally Posted by sovvisor

I have stolen another pic from that site. Sometimes I judge on what else the seller have for sale if a thing is genuine. I post here a pic of a M35 airforce tunic. Maybe we can decide whether this is genuine or not. The price on the marshals cap is very nice.
What do you think of the tunic.
Best

[sovvisor]

I like it myself but I think it looks too good on the collartabs etc. It doesn´t have the old feeling which the cap has. It´s very hard to tell. It should be 60 years old.Keep that in mind...

[DougD]

ok, having dealt with a huge number of generals and marshals caps, here is my opinion: its PROBABLY made for film or theatre. It does not set off any alarm bells ( the lining is a bit odd with the tightener in it), but the heavy wear could be from the film and theatre use and the stamps worry me. They are not museum inventory stamps as I have seen on some of the higher end hats I have had in. These stamps are from a theatre or film studio. That being said, it does not mean its bad. I have had in a few nice theatre items, even a nice NKVD generals tunic from Andrew Mollo that was from Lenfilm.

But, there was also of stuff made for film and I am suspicious of theatre stamps on simple items like hats that are easy to make. I know of a few Marshals M1935 and M1940 tunics that were made for film; very convincing but the embroidery gives them away; there is no embroidery on the hat to set off any warning bells.

If, like my friend, I had a matching tunic, it might be worth the risk.

they also have a few other hats with the telltale small theatre / film stamps inside; here they are.That tells me they got these hats from a warehouse, not from an individual or, in the marshals hat, the family.

DougD

[LeeG]

Doug,
Do those inventory numbers on the NKVD cap mean it's postwar made or just WW2 surplus used by the theater?
What do you think of the infantry 'crusher' that they have on there?--no inventory stamps on that one.
-Lee

[DougD]

the stamps mean that the hats with them were in the theatre inventory, not that they were made at any specific time. theatres like those in Leningrad or Moscow had access to a huge surplus to use; local theatres would have some basic stuff, but would have to make rare items or German items (like SS uniforms) that they needed.

the crusher they have is ok in my eyes, they were made in large numbers and can "fit" almost any uniform.

DD