SS BeVo Collar Tab

Product Description: This SS BeVo Collar Tab is a virtually pristine, unissued piece. It’s made of machine woven rayon, with the runic organizational emblem of the SS rendered on a rectangular black field, with a thin black backing. The weaving is perfect, with no threads out of place. The reverse of this very desirable SS BeVo Collar Tab is textbook, with a typical white lattice interior stiffener. The folded backing is held together with glue rather than stitching, and is standard for this tab type. There are no stitch holes or any other indication this was ever affixed to a uniform. Other than a couple of tiny and virtually invisible spots on the front, this tab is flawless. This hard-to-find original tab was found in an unnamed vet 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. It remains just as it was when it was brought back, and is 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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