Embroidered SS Runic Collar Tab

Product Description: This Embroidered SS Runic Collar Tab is an exceptional, worn piece, with great character. This started off as a standard issue enlisted embroidered tab, and was upgraded with silver twist piping around the edge, for wear by an officer. The tab is constructed of a typical black SS wool fabric, which shows no mothing or other damage. The runic organizational emblem of the SS is machine embroidered on the front, with cotton thread. The rank piping is made of aluminum wire bullion, and has been neatly hand-sewn to the tab with black stitching that is virtually invisible on the front. The reverse of this Embroidered SS Runic Collar Tab shows the folded edges of the wool, as well as a correct internal buckram stiffener. This is a tab that was affixed to a uniform collar and worn. Some traces of the black thread used to attach this to the uniform are still present around the edge. This is a very nice tab, with a lot going for it. The condition rates as excellent.

Historical Description: Regulations for the SS Collar Tab went through quite an evolution in just a short 16-year period. The first SS Collar Tabs were introduced in 1929 by Heinrich Himmler as part of the newly introduced SS uniform code. Initially, tabs were worn by both lower rank SS men and their senior leaders. Lower ranks would wear a rank tab as well as a numbered unit identification tab, with senior leaders wearing their rank tabs on both collars. In 1933 the well-known “SS” runic tab was adopted by Hitler’s personal bodyguard detachment, the “Leibstandarte” or “LAH”. The LAH used this runic tab in lieu of the numerical unit identification tab to identify them as members of the elite unit protecting the “Führer”. In 1934 the runic “SS” tabs were again adopted for use by the early “SS-VT” units. This adoption eventually led to the widespread use of SS runic tabs by German Divisions; the later non-German volunteer units would not be permitted to wear the runes, and bore their own unit designed patch instead. SS Collar tabs can be found in an extraordinary variety of numbers, designs, and pipings depending on unit and rank, from hand-embroidered tabs worn by officers to mass produced embroidered and machine woven types that were used on combat uniforms.

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