The reference books are wrong!

[dutchbarge]

For many years I have been troubled by what I thought must have been an 'issue' with one of my Imperial German tunics. The tunic in question is an officer's simplified (1914-1915) tunic to the Bavarian Infantry Regiment Nr.1. It is really a beautiful tunic which appeared correct in all respects save for the shoulder boards. They are sewn in 'interium' (1914-15) boards (matt cording) with colored underlay and gilt 'JM'/crown cyphers. This is what I would have expected as the tunic is dated 28.9.14. The only 'problem' is that the underlay color is red and all the books, Juergen Kraus, Mollo-Turner, Men-At-Arms, etc. state that the underlay for B.J.R.Nr. 1 (the 1st Bavarian Army), 1914, is white. Looking under the cyphers you can see firm 'ghosts' of un-faded cord on the shoulder boards and the shoulder seams (under a microscope) appear never to have been opened indicating that the cyphers are original to the boards and that the boards are original to the tunic, yet according to the reference books their underlay color was incorrect. Over the years I had seen several examples, M910 and interium, of B.J.R.Nr. 1 shoulder boards at shows and on dealer's websites with red underlay so I felt that perhaps the books might be wrong. It wasn't until I finally studied the Moritz Ruhl "Die Feldgraue Felduniform der Deutschen Armee"(1910) shoulder board charts, the Kaiser's Bunker website and conversed with Diethelm Koenig that I began to find confirmation of my suspicions. If you read the Jurgen Kraus tome, "The German Army in the First World War-Uniforms and Equipment 1914-1918", page 265, you will see that he states that (status 1914) the Bavarian Infantry Regiments, Leib, 1st, 2nd and 3rd should all have white shoulder-strap edging (thus white underlay for officer's shoulder boards), yet if you look at pages 249-250 you will see photos of M1910 and 1914-1915 Lieb and 3rd J.R. shouder boards with red underlay. On page 279 there are photos of a Bavarian Lieb M1910 tunic with red shoulder board underlay. If you go down his list of Bavarian regiments on page 265, you will also see regiments which, according to him, should have lemon-yellow underlay but which in the photos on page 249-50 have red underlay (B.J.R.s 7, 13,21). So despite what the books say, it would seem that my shoulder boards are correct afterall. I'm not trying to knock the authors of the reference books. Without them we'd all be in the dark. I'm only trying to caution collectors against being too quick to condemn something because it is not 'correct' according to the experts. Cheers, Bill

[rewbarbel]

It just shows that we shouldn't put all our faith in books!!