Military Headdress: A Pictorial History of Military Headgear from 1660 to 1914 - Rankin (1976)

Of all the various components of military uniform, headdress is perhaps of greatest interest to collectors. One important reason for this is that an item of military headdress is a complete unit in itself, comparatively easy to display and requiring a minimum of care. Fortunately for historians and collectors, since military headdresses are usually made of leather or metal, they have survived when other parts of the uniform have fallen prey to time and moths, or have been worn out through subsequent conversion to civilian use. In the absence of written regulations on the subject, the survival of headdresses is very important, for it provides accurate, first-hand historical information which simply is not available for other parts of military uniform.