Kaiserliche Marine Deckoffizier Schirmmutze

Kaiserliche Marine Deckoffizier Schirmmutze. The body is of the highest quality doeskin wool, and constructed correctly for a naval cap. Interestingly, the visor is leather with wonderful age crazing.

A close up of the superbly embroidered Deckoffizier insignia of a Kaiser's crown with scroll above a cockade which has darkened with age and tarnish.

The insignia is sewn onto the body through the band, so the band cannot be completely removed, but it slips off the back and sides as is normal for Navy caps, as the black band was not sewn directy on the cap. Where the chinstrap leather touches the band on both sides, the material of the band has flattened with a perfect imprint of the strap ends; with such a delicate touch from the fine leather of the chinstrap, this cannot be faked. The straps have always touched the band in those exact spots.

The leather chinstrap is of the correct pattern with slide on one side and a buckle on the other side. The strap has become very brittle and delicate from age, so it cannot be removed without breaking.

A close-up of the guilded chinstrap button.

The liner is silk with a stiff Alkor Ersatz-leather (coated cloth) sweatband which is perforated around the circumference with a herring bone pattern (<<<<) for an adjustment ribbon. Of interest, the stiffener inside the cap band on the interior is a creamy-white celluloid, which is normal for naval caps, as unlike cardboard it is water-proof, thin, and retains it's shape.

Celluloid was introduced in 1863 and was well established by 1900 in use for movie film and is commonly found on such things as 1st war gas mask lenses, map cases, Marine caps, etc.

On the Alkor Ersatz-leather sweatband is a wonderful embossed "Heinrich Scherff Wilhelmshaven" manufacturer's mark. Wilhelmshaven was not a commercial port; it was only Kaiserliche-Marine and home of the High-Seas Fleet.

A very nice photo of Kaiserliche Marine Deckoffizier Fritz Zaike wearing a similar Schirmmütze taken in 1903 at the studio of Theodor Kählar in Kiel. As a Deckoffizier (Warrant Officer), Fritz is wearing the Deckoffizier's frock coat with officers' swordknot, cockades and sabre.

A Kaiserliche Marine Deckoffizier's Schirmmütze sitting on a table for a formal studio portrait.