SS Bevo Collar Tab

Product Description: This SS Bevo Collar Tab is an outstanding, unissued piece. The front of this machine woven tab features the runic emblem of the SS, perfectly executed on a woven black background. There is no fading, and only extremely minimal age toning. The edges of the tab show no stitch holes or any other indication of ever having been affixed to anything. On the reverse, this desirable SS Bevo Collar Tab shows the thin rayon backing of the machine woven emblem, neatly folded. The internal stiffener is a textbook white lattice material. This attractive piece of Waffen-SS insignia was found in a veteran’s locker, inside a gas mask bag, with 13 other Bevo runic tabs, a few other SS tabs, a few chevrons, and a Kriegsmarine side cap. This was most likely brought home just as it was found. There was unfortunately no name on the veteran locker. This hard-to-find SS Bevo collar tab displays great, and remains in excellent 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 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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