Hi Bill....I do not know what the issue is? Kelly Hicks is very respected in the collecting community. His word is accepted as gospel on SS helmets. I would assume that he knows something about SS headgear as well. I will not comment on Craig Gottlieb as I have had some very bad transactions with him in the not too distant past. Prior to those "issues" I had an excellent relationship with Craig and sold to him often. Unfortunately for me his reputation, as it pertains to me only has been tarnished. This is a personal matter and not worthy of discussion on this forum. I respect him enough still not to do that here. Once more I said when you solicited my opinion that from the poor quality pictures supplied I was unable to offer a clear opinion. I offered to send your better images to someone, Martin Stiles who is fairly well respected in the cloth SS and headgear community. He has pronounced it as being "fake" I merely delivered his reply to you from your pictures. I did say that there were some things that I liked about the cap and some things that I did not. I prefaced by saying that these early SS-VT caps are NOT within my collecting realm or area of expertise. Regards, Ryan