The Collector's Guide to Cloth Third Reich Military Headgear

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful book for beginer or advanced collector!
Review: I purchased Gary's book last year, and I am quite certain that it has already paid for it's self by helping me distinguish the fakes from the originals.
In my opinion it is an absolute must for beginers, and a fasinating delight for the advanced collector. Advanced collectors will find an exhaustive reference, concering the history of most all German military cap manufacturers, 1930's-present, 95% emphasis on Third Reich. The fact that Gary is a German language major enabled him to contact present day German Government agentcies, allowing him to extract tons of lost or forgotten information from vast German Archives. Gary's mastery of the language gives the reader a unique perspective of the 'German way of thinking', concering design, manufacturing, advertising and distribution of German cloth military headgear.
As for the photographs, well there are loads of 4/color photos. Beautiful originals as well as some ugly fakes, and everything in between. Original period photos of the military men wearing their headgear, indepth discussions on fabric types and grades, charts on fabric weaves, and cap "disections" are also contained. DRGM, RZM, patient and sweatband embossing stamps are all addressed.
Over all, a very well rounded collectors guide. With such an enormous undertaking, only the lack of space and extra pages limits any addional information. The only thing wrong with the book is that it does not have a volume or two to acompany it. Great job on a difficult subject! Worth every penny.
THIS IS A FIVE STAR BOOK, AND IS HIGHLY RECOMENDED!!!

Rating:
Summary: Errors By Omission
Review: Unfortunately, this book is a flawed reference for the average collector and damning to advanced collectors with rare, original variations of German headgear. Many original examples of highly collectible headgear are omitted and the authors often leave the reader with the false impression that what you see in this book is the final word in originality. Half of the book does have an interesting section concerning the different hat makers of the period, thus providing some minor redemption for the publication, along with good photography of limited examples. Overall, the book is of narrow scope from incomplete research and laced with errors, many by omission.