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IJA felt field cap


RussM
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Here is my IJA felt cap made from rabbit hair.

This is a 2 piece cap made from pressed felt. The body of the cap is one piece, with no sewn seams. There are 3 vent holes on each side which are punched out.

There are no adjustment ties at the rear of the cap, but this one has been made slightly smaller by pinching it together at the rear and then stitching it.

The second piece of felt is the visor which is stitched to the body of the cap.

The body has 5 stitches to hold a havelock, not the usual 4. This is probably because on most army caps they use the 3 pairs of adjustment ties which thread through a havelock to attach it. This cap doesn't have those adjustment ties so a stitch is located at the rear.

The interior is lined, I can't see any signs of a stamp but I believe it would have been stamped originally. The sweatband is painted cloth, where most of it has started to peel off.

There are four stitched katakana on the left side of the cap. These have been translated but they don't appear to be a Japanese name, so this is a little unusual.

From Japanese records it seems these felt caps were made in two versions - a complete 1 piece cap and this 2 piece version. These felt caps are considered to be quite rare, especially the one piece version. They were used from around 1937 to 1941.

If you have any of these felt caps in your collections, please add them here - it would be great to see some of these caps!

Regards

Russ

 

 

post-187805-0-41911800-1559711767_thumb.jpg

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Eric Queen

From left to right the first three (katakana) characters are オカノ (Okano) which would be a common Japanese surname. I am not sure what the "ku" () on the end represents. Could be the first syllable of his given name.

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Russ,

While some collectors might say your cap is in "worn" condition, I would consider it a nice example of this variation of the enlisted cap given how difficult they are to find today. Their material and construction was not the best and they didn't weather very well. The single piece felt cap is extremely difficult to fine and has a more conical shape due to the steam blocking process used to form the cap. I have only seen one of those and I'm sorry to say I could never figured out a way to purchase or trade it from the owner. The liner was indeed stamped with the "koh" and "otsu" ink blocks with one stamp on each side of the liner rather than the crown. I have seen dates on the stamps between 1938 and 1940 but I have also seen dated photos of the "felt" cap being worn into the early 1940's, likely until the supply of these caps ran out. The cap's insignia was the one piece star and I have not seen a picture of a two piece insignia, but it seems possible there may be out there somewhere. The felt material was subject to insect damage which was a drawback to the design plus I don't think the cap's material lent itself to being worn under a helmet. The material did not have reinforced stitching on vent holes and the lack of a size adjustment cutout on the back was a way to reduce production time and cost. But without the size adjustment cut out, the"felt" cap was made in a greater number of sizes rather than general sizes of small, medium and large. While the earlier caps are mustard-yellow-brown in color some of the later cap material range from green to dark brown and the chin straps used lesser grades of leather also. Is your cap more green as it appears in the pictures? The "havelots" on this cap were slightly different design and appear larger than the havelocks on other army combat caps and as you have noted had 5 hooks....I have seen pictures of them but never a real pair which are rarer than the cap. I have seen pictures of army officers wearing this cap but those are even more rare than the enlisted model.Since this cap appears to have been more of an interim cap rather than an experimental design, I 'm not sure if the officer's cap was an "issue" piece or a private purchase with custom features such as cherry blossom side buttons and enhanced material for the liner. To the best of my knowledge, the navy did not experiment with a cap of this type.

Nice cap.....

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Hi Eric, thank you for the translation of the katakana. When it was looked at previously, it didn’t seem to make sense with the four characters. There don’t appear to be any stitches missing so it is a bit of a mystery!

 

Regards

 

Russ

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Hi John, many thanks for your comments, information and appraisal on the cap!

 

Yes, the colour is green, perhaps a little darker than shown in these pics so it is probably one of the later examples. It is in fairly good condition compared with a few others I’ve seen.

 

Sometimes the liner is missing, or the felt is badly moth-eaten. This one seems to have survived quite well!

 

Regards

 

Russ

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Eric Queen

Hi Eric, thank you for the translation of the katakana. When it was looked at previously, it didn’t seem to make sense with the four characters. There don’t appear to be any stitches missing so it is a bit of a mystery!

 

Regards

 

Russ

 

There may not be any missing stitches. He could have stitched only the first syllable of his given name if he felt that was all that would be needed for the cap to be identified to him. I don't know. Just a guess.

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