Seeing info or feedback on mystery Reds cap

[Chris-Counts]

Here's a perplexing cap I recently found on eBay. The seller said it's a 1951 game used Ted Kluszewski Reds cap, but I'm certain that isn't possible, mostly because the McAuliffe tag shown here was first used in 1958, the year after Big Klu was traded away by the Reds. According to someone who understands the construction of these caps better than I do, this cap was made in the late 50s or early 1960s. The side stripes could have been inspired by the those on the 1957 Cubs caps (the Senators did the same with red stripes in the mid-1960s). My guess is that this is a prototype for a Reds cap that was never used. The Reds made many subtle changes to their caps during this era, and since McAuliffe made more caps than anybody during this time, the company likely would have sent samples to the Reds, which had used McAuliffe caps from 1954 to 1956. It would not surprise me that the cap companies were making their own prototypes to impress potential customers.

Has anybody ever seen a photo of a Reds player wearing this style cap? So far I haven't found anything, but I did discover the that Reds actually created an all-Red uniform as a prototype around 1956.