Imperial German Kaiserliche Marine Sailor Dickie Collar Dated 1913 Exerzierkragen

An Imperial German naval sailor's dickie and detachable collar, the two-piece false-front garment known as an Exerzierkragen (drill collar), named, depot-stamped, and dated to 1913. The piece consists of a white cotton twill bib front with side and neck ties, worn beneath a jumper to present the appearance of a full sailor's shirt, together with its deep squared collar of dark navy-blue cotton trimmed with the three parallel white tapes traditional to sailors' dress across the world's navies. The bib measures approximately 14 inches (35.6 cm) in width and 12.5 inches (31.8 cm) in length, dimensions appropriate to a dickie rather than a full frock, since the garment was never intended to extend beyond what a jumper's opening would reveal. The Exerzierkragen was standard issue in the German navy, allowing a rating to keep a fresh white front and collar for inspection and drill without laundering an entire shirt, and its construction changed little across the successive German fleets.

The garment carries a full complement of period markings, which fix its date and character. Worked in red embroidered thread on the white bib are the naval owner's laundry marks, rendered in the German convention of initials, depot or unit abbreviation, and year: H M, 11 SG, C1, and 13, the final numeral denoting 1913. Beside these is an ink depot stamp reading 8 A.W. with the date 12.3.13, that is, 12 March 1913, a German clothing-office issue or receipt mark that provides a firm point of origin. A sewn-in cloth name tag is lettered Meyer, C. with a pencil inventory number 103. The collar carries its own separately applied owner's name, Gerold, stamped to a white tape block at the hem. The differing names on bib and collar indicate the two elements were marked by different hands, whether through reissue or later pairing, and no claim is made that they were originally issued together.

The 12 March 1913 depot date places this piece squarely in the final peacetime year of the Kaiserreich, when the Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial German Navy) stood at the height of its pre-war expansion. The naval building programs championed by Wilhelm II and Grand Admiral Tirpitz had by 1913 made the Imperial Navy the second most powerful fleet afloat and the chief rival to British sea power, a rivalry that would help bring on the war a year later. Ratings of that fleet wore precisely this pattern of drill collar and dickie beneath the blue and white jumpers of the naval uniform, and a firmly dated 1913 example represents the German sailor on the very eve of the First World War. Objects marked and dated to this narrow window, before the outbreak of the conflict that would consume the fleet at Jutland and end it in mutiny and internment, are of particular documentary value.

Honesty requires noting the limits of what the object itself proves. The dickie construction and the German-language depot markings are consistent with Kaiserliche Marine issue, and the 1913 depot stamp is authentic to the period, but no crowned-anchor service mark is visible in examination, so the naval attribution rests on pattern and marking style rather than an explicit service stamp. The style of the Exerzierkragen persisted with little change into later German navies, which is why examples are sometimes catalogued to later periods; here the embroidered year and the dated depot stamp both read 1913, and the piece is described accordingly to the Imperial period.

Condition is honest and consistent with a laundered cotton garment over a century old. The white bib is age-toned and softly stained overall, with scattered spotting, while the blue collar retains strong color and its three white tapes intact. The embroidered laundry marks, the depot stamp, and both names remain clearly legible. Light wear and minor losses are present at the ties and edges. The bib and collar are complete as a set, subject to the noted difference in their names.

For the collector the value lies in the documentation. Named and dated Imperial German naval textiles are considerably scarcer and more desirable than anonymous survivals, and the combination here of embroidered laundry marks, a depot stamp dated to the day, a sewn name tag, and a named collar makes this a well-anchored example of Kaiserliche Marine other-ranks dress in its final peacetime year. It will interest collectors of Imperial German naval material, of pre-war dated textiles, and of named ephemera of the Kaiserreich.