Allgemeine – SS Rank Collar Tab – Unterscharführer

Product Description: This Allgemeine – SS Rank Collar Tab is a nice piece. This would have been worn on the left side of the collar. The body of the tab is made of typical prewar quality black wool SS badge cloth, formed around a buckram stiffener. The center of the tab is adorned with a single aluminum rank pip. The edges of the tab feature twisted silver and black cord piping, neatly hand sewn with hidden stitches as is typical. The reverse of this tab shows the folded edges of the wool as well as the tan buckram. The Tombak prongs from the rank pip are visible. The tab is complete with the original SS RZM paper tag. The tag shows a tear but remains complete, and is printed with a “B” tax code as well as the maker code “A4/85.” This Allgemeine – SS Rank Collar Tab appears to be unissued, with no sign of having been stitched to a uniform. It remains in outstanding, near mint condition.

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 body guard 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 wide spread 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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