Antique Mall Find - BGS helmet?

[Gordon Craig]

The liner markings for the shell size 66.

[Gordon Craig]

The next pictures are of polizei helmets from my archives. Ones I would like to own but are more difficult to find than the ones that I have in my collection already. A recycled WWII helmet. Early BGS helemts were also recycled WWII helmets. Mostly with a new liner system.
Bayern (Bavaria)

[Gordon Craig]

Bremen. Also a recycled WWII helmet.

[Gordon Craig]

The next helmet is reported to be from Hessen.

[Gordon Craig]

A very rare white helmet from S-H.

[Gordon Craig]

The first helmet has a decal from Saarland. Another rare helmet.
The second picture is for a helmet Baer reports was worn following WWII in the American zone. I can not attest to the autheticity of this helmet. It is here for interest purposes only.

[Gordon Craig]

The last helmet is of the M53 style but I do not know who wore this one. It is also posted for interest purposes only.

[Collectinsteve]

Impressive helmet collection, Gordon!!! And good to know that stamp is the helmet size and not the date. If I knew that I had forgotten. Now I have the opportunity to forget it again

The helmet with no vent holes is, I think, BGS. Or at least I'm nearly positive BGS used it. But with the overlap between BGS and Polizei it's probably not unique to BGS over the course of time.

Thanks for the pics!

Steve

[Gordon Craig]

Steve,

The BGS used both the helmets with air vents and without air vents. According to Baer, the first of the M53 helmets had air vents and then they were simplified by omitting the air vents. This proved to be a mistake and they started to produce helmets with air vents again. He doesn't give any time frame for these two events and since the helmets aren't dated we can not even estimate when these things took place.

Regards,

Gordon

[Guardian 5]

Gents - I believe we had previously established that the Gray M-35/53 without vents (Post # 22) was part of a BGS overproduction run that was passed onto the Berlin Bereitschaftspolizei.

In Gordon's picture of the underside of this helmet you can see a mussgruen BGS component in the otherwise Gray liner.

I'll dig for the original discussion, but I think its deep in the Bundeswehr Lover's thread.

I have an example of that same helmet in my collection and I have labled it as "Berlin BEPO".

To bolster my contention that usmedalman's helmet is most likely BGS, I forward this color picture of BGS honor guards carrying Chancellor Adenauer's casket.

All the best - TJ

[Guardian 5]

A close - up. Some with vents; some without.

[usmedalman]

Thanks for the great discussion

I want to thank all who have contributed to this discussion. Now, to complete the helmet as BGS, would I be looking for a black chinstrap or a brown one?

[ReinerMB42]

BGS-Helmet

Go for a black one! At best with an "MS Bund" stamp.

Best regards

Reiner