General Omar Bradley’s dress cap on eBay! Or not...

[MattS]

So long as you can believe that General of the Army Omar Bradley got his cap secondhand from Colonel [something] Chapman Jr. and then removed his name tag from under the visor, it can be yours for the low price of $3500! I suspect the colonel had this cap upgraded with general’s trim when he earned his star and it has zero to do with Bradley. 
https://www.ebay.com/itm/284229397365

[MattS]

Anyone else see this?

 

[uniformcollector]

I was the one that purchased this hat from J. James Auctions in 2014.

 

The provenance was vague, but I took a chance and tried to track down the museum it came from. Unfortunately, I didn't get very far and came to the conclusion that this is almost certainly not General Bradley's hat. The Chapman info you note was pretty much the most obvious giveaway. There was no name tag when I purchased it and no information about Bradley's tag being removed. 

 

I sold it to this seller as an unidentified, but nicely made GO hat at $250 a few years ago. Hopefully nobody gets fooled on this one, but for that kind of money, they would have to be pretty optimistic. 

 

 

 

 

[MattS]

That seems fair on your end of the deal, thanks for the info! 

[Blacksmith]

9 hours ago, uniformcollector said:

I was the one that purchased this hat from J. James Auctions in 2014.

 

The provenance was vague, but I took a chance and tried to track down the museum it came from. Unfortunately, I didn't get very far and came to the conclusion that this is almost certainly not General Bradley's hat. The Chapman info you note was pretty much the most obvious giveaway. There was no name tag when I purchased it and no information about Bradley's tag being removed. 

 

I sold it to this seller as an unidentified, but nicely made GO hat at $250 a few years ago. Hopefully nobody gets fooled on this one, but for that kind of money, they would have to be pretty optimistic. 

 

 

 

 

Kudos to you uniformcollector, for being legit - made me think of Wonka's borrowing Shakespeare's line from "The Merchant of Venice", "So shines a good deed in a weary world".  :)

 

Quick question, as I'm a garrison uniform dum-dum:  Could there be that many Army Generals named "Chapman, Jr." in the period this hat would have been in wear?  

 

By example, could this have been MG Elbridge Gerry Chapman Jr's hat?  He passed in 1954.

[Allan H.]

While it would be odd for Omar Bradley to have gotten the cap second hand from a Colonel Chapman, it is not unheard of for uniform pieces, especially the very pricey dress uniform pieces to have moved from soldier to soldier.

 

When I was in college, I was friends with the granddaughter of Joseph Slaydon Bradley who commanded the 27th Infantry Regiment in WWII and the 25th Infantry Division in Korea, I had the opportunity to view some of his items which are still in the possession of the family. One of the more interesting items that they had was Bradley's dress cape. This is a piece that is rarely seen and was rarely worn as it would have only been needed on cold evenings when wearing dress blues. The family was quite proud of the fact that the cloak had been given to Bradley by one of his former commanders, John J. Pershing! Yes, Pershing's name tag was still attached.

 

One other thing to consider here is that a lot of items to notable military men came from Army Relief Campaign auctions. The Campaign would get high profile soldiers to donate an item for auction to raise money for Army charities. I am sure that Omar would have been touched for items a lot. I can also see his staff going out and "finding" items for him to donate. I know of at least THREE World War II Victory medals that were donated by Audie Murphy to these auctions. Each is identical- a non-descript WWII medal with a card signed by Murphy stating that is was his medal on an Army Relief Campaign card.

 

Just some observations...

 

Allan 

[MattS]

53 minutes ago, Blacksmith said:

Kudos to you uniformcollector, for being legit - made me think of Wonka's borrowing Shakespeare's line from "The Merchant of Venice", "So shines a good deed in a weary world".  :)

 

Quick question, as I'm a garrison uniform dum-dum:  Could there be that many Army Generals named "Chapman, Jr." in the period this hat would have been in wear?  

 

By example, could this have been MG Elbridge Gerry Chapman Jr's hat?  He passed in 1954.

I believe this Lux to be WW2-Korea timeframe so that fits. If the first name on the tag could be deciphered, that would certainly help ID the original owner.

[Dave]

Here's the original auction listing for the hat:

 

https://jjamesauctions.hibid.com/lot/15016108/wwii-u-s--army-general-officer-visor-cap?ipp=10

 

Must say there were some neat pieces in that auction that I would have definitely bought. Oh to be able to go back a few years! 

[MattS]

Thanks for the link, Dave. Still unsure what the connection is between this COL Chapman and GEN Bradley. I did notice the photos in the original auction did not provide the detail on the name tag that the eBay auction does. 

[uniformcollector]

Thanks for the comments everyone—far and away the most expensive lesson I’ve learned in collecting! The hat could very well be from that Chapman, but it is a shame that the first initials are very hard to make out. 
 

And to Allan’s point, there are tons of high ranking officers that trade or sell uniform items with each other. I’ve noticed this especially with mess dress or evening dress uniforms that are very expensive and seldom worn (a lot like the boat cloaks/capes). I have a USMC evening dress uniform that was worn by three different GO’s in only five or so years, for example. 

 

With Bradley, though, given the fact that he was officially retired (5-stars serve for life) when this hat was likely issued, I would expect the army to take care of every new uniform piece. But you never know!

[Dave]

The only difference between COL Chapman's hat and the unknown general who wore this one is that the latter replaced the branch color band with general officer oakleaves. Not difficult to do, and pretty readily available, even in heavy bullion (Marlow White used to sell them, even recently). 

Not saying that someone would pay $100 for a bullion oakleaf band and add it to a $50 regular field grade officer hat in order to sell it as an "unnamed" GO hat for $250+, but anytime there's a profit to be made, I'm sure it's happened more than once. 

 

 

[MattS]

14 minutes ago, Dave said:

The only difference between COL Chapman's hat and the unknown general who wore this one is that the latter replaced the branch color band with general officer oakleaves. Not difficult to do, and pretty readily available, even in heavy bullion (Marlow White used to sell them, even recently). 

Not saying that someone would pay $100 for a bullion oakleaf band and add it to a $50 regular field grade officer hat in order to sell it as an "unnamed" GO hat for $250+, but anytime there's a profit to be made, I'm sure it's happened more than once. 

 

 

 

My assumption was COL Chapman had a fairly new Lux visor with his branch trim applied and got promoted to O-7 so he had the band trim changed. Probably cost $5 to do back then, cheaper than replacing it with a new $25 Lux cap!  

[Dave]

49 minutes ago, MattS said:

 

My assumption was COL Chapman had a fairly new Lux visor with his branch trim applied and got promoted to O-7 so he had the band trim changed. Probably cost $5 to do back then, cheaper than replacing it with a new $25 Lux cap!  

 

Great point. The age of the hat would work well `with this general...

[MattS]

Great find, Dave! Very possibly a match. He assumed command of the 20th Engineer Brigade in August of 1967 as a BGEN so the time frame does fit. 

Here’s his USMA alumni entry. 

[MattS]

Maybe a period and space between initials? 

[MattS]

The more I look at the sticker residue, the more convinced I am that this says, "COLONEL C. W. CHAPMAN JR". 

On 3/23/2021 at 10:22 PM, MattS said:

 

 

[ottodog8]

On 3/24/2021 at 9:14 AM, Dave said:

Here's the original auction listing for the hat:

 

https://jjamesauctions.hibid.com/lot/15016108/wwii-u-s--army-general-officer-visor-cap?ipp=10

 

Must say there were some neat pieces in that auction that I would have definitely bought. Oh to be able to go back a few years! 

I was present at that auction. Some amazing things, but there was plenty of bad mixed in. I came home with a Samurai bow of all things.

 

Steve

[MattS]

This hat is back only now with the real original owner's information (label residue under the visor) removed to eliminate any possibility of identifying this as a fraudulent piece.

Same seller (fortress_7), same wear spot under the visor, same clipped corner of the size tag, etc. 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/274821743865?hash=item3ffca704f9:g:9W4AAOSw7dVguayd

 

 

[dmar836]

Too bad eBay doesn't seem to care about altered items sold dishonestly. I guess the percentage of a sale is the percentage of a sale.

[uniformcollector]

On 6/4/2021 at 7:49 AM, dmar836 said:

Too bad eBay doesn't seem to care about altered items sold dishonestly. I guess the percentage of a sale is the percentage of a sale.

 

To be fair, I don't think eBay will ever get to the point of being able to judge the provenance of items like these. It's one thing to spot a fake Rolex, but things like Omar Bradley's hat are a bit harder to pin down. Interestingly, the seller contacted me couple months ago via email to ask about the price I paid for it. After sharing the same conclusion put on here, he gave me a list of reasons why the hat is "undeniably authentic." Sad to see the tape removed as now he is more deliberately trying to deceive, but hopefully buyers will do a quick google search to find this page!

[MattS]

It sold for the opening bid of $650. I hope the new owner reads this thread. 

[Jamecharles]

Furthermore this visor is clearly made post 1953.

GS

[MattS]

1 hour ago, Jamecharles said:

Furthermore this visor is clearly made post 1953.

GS

 

That makes perfect sense as it belonged to a colonel who was promoted to brigadier general in 1967. 

[dmar836]

Bet it was a shill bid.

[MattS]

13 hours ago, dmar836 said:

Bet it was a shill bid.

 

I would not be surprised.