Unusual flag?
 

I bought some books at an estate sale, and found this in the pile. The strange thing is that it's printed on canvas, and one side only. There's also an SS stamp plus a pinwheel with a swastika on the back. I haven't measured it yet, but the picture shows it on the hood of my car to give you an idea of the size.

So does anybody know what it is, and if there's any value to it?

I have doubts on the originality of the item. The dimensions of the swastika center to the bars is not like any I've seen before. It just doesn't look correct for the scale of the design. The condition appears new and why would it have the SS ink stamp?

G2

When it came to flags, the Germans and Nazis were very particular about their quality. The seams would be flawlessly done. This one screams fake to me as well.

The proportions sure don't look right, and first time I unfolded it I got the impression that it was cut down (which it doesn't appear to be). The quality is not all that great either, made me think that it was something for temporary use, almost disposable. And it looks kinda like a Kriegsmarine flag, but with an SS stamp? Lots of details that make you go hmmmm...

However, this is what puzzles me most of all: Why would anybody make a fake that looks like this? If you go through the effort of making a fake, you'd usually make something that's easily recognizable so you can sell it easily. Another strange detail is the pinwheel stamp, a faker would probably just slap the SS stamp on it and call it a day.

I guess I'll bring it to the TMCA show and see if somebody can figure it out.

Edit: The rest of the collection looked rather mundane at a glance, but when you inspected them more closely there was often a twist to them. For example: there several seemingly mundane Makarov pistols, but when I looked closer I found that most of them were non imports (even one of the rare Chinese military Maks). There were also some Com-Bloc bayonets that were not the cheap surplus I thought they were, many of them were rare variations that he obviously hand picked for his collection. Lots of high dollar books as well, so it seems like the guy had a pretty good idea of what he was doing.

What is the significance of the "pinwheel", and where/on what is it usually found?

That's exactly what I'm wondering. I have never seen it before and haven't been able to find anything about it on the Internet either.

Anything with SS markings has to be considered suspect. There is more SS stuff offered at large gun shows than there were SS members.

And the SS officers must have carried large amounts of guns as well, seems like every German WWII gun I find was "picked off of a dead SS officer". :rolleyes: So yes, an SS stamp is a red flag in many cases.