Condition: Near Mint
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Product Description: This is a great example of a desirable SS Volunteer Collar Tab. This style of collar tab was intended for wear by men of the 29th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS RONA (1st Russian), formed of foreign volunteers on the base of Bronislav Kaminski’s Waffen-Sturm-Brigade RONA. The front of the tab is emblazoned with a cross and swords emblem that has been neatly machine embroidered in white cotton thread. The tab is made of a typical black badge cloth fabric that has been folded around a tan buckram backing, with the folded edges held in place on the reverse with white machine stitching. This style of construction is known in the collecting community to have been found in the warehouses at concentration camp Dachau, located in Bavaria just outside of Munich. Since the end of the war these tabs have been found predominately in U.S. veterans’ estates after they brought them home from Europe as war souvenirs. There are no stitch holes on this piece, and no other indication of ever having been affixed to a uniform. It’s just a perfect, unissued tab, with no stains, holes or damage. This SS Volunteer Collar Tab 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 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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