Woodwork prussian officer's vulkanfiber helmet....

[Milton]

A walk into my place, this one was found during an estate clean out...literally pulled out of the rubbish bin, wrapped in old newspaper (some of which is still stuck beneath the chin scales...). Appears to be a Vulkanfiber type, as there's no crazing, cracking, etc...The helmet is complete w/ everything, including a quite dried out (but intact), sweatband, which ALSO appears to have been fashioned out of some kind of Ersatz material (as opposed to leather). Interesting, gray metal fittings w/ some gilt embellishments (namely, the spike base rivets, and "band" around the base of the spike. Only liability I can ascertain is that the very tip of the spike is rough, as it appears to have been dropped at some point, shearing off the very tip of the spike, and slightly depressing the spike base on one side...otherwise, a nice basement survivor, which almost went into the dumpster....Also of note, it appears that the original wearer elected to stuff a small wooden peg into the vent hole in the spike base, much like the blocking you'll sometimes see in the vent lugs of Stahlhelme, in order to block air from entering. A few pix below, and thanks in advance for any feedback.

[Milton]

2

[Milton]

Liner....

[phild]

Very nice find. Most all of the metal fittings are made of zinc based alloy and have lost their original finish as is almost always the case......so that is not a "slam" against this example. It appears that except for the stars the finish was in silver color, but maybe in person you can see gilt traces.....very hard to say from just photos.

[Milton]

Thanks for your feedback. You could be right, although honestly in hand I can't really make out ANY traces of gilt on any of the other fittings, only the star base rivets, and the small decorative ferrule at the base of the spike. It was just refreshing to see one that surfaced complete for a change!

[Chip M]

Milton,

You continually amaze me with your findings. I don't know how you do it. You either have a great network of pickers or are an incredible digger yourself. Impressive.

Chip

[ROBB]

Unreal who would think that was worthless trash ? they need a good thrashing with a feather duster . Super helmet . Rob

[Milton]

Thx for the additional feedback and compliments... persistence pays off sometimes, and yes, amazing what some folks still deem as worthless.....

[Adler 1]

Now that's a great survivor and luckily you could save it from getting trashed!
It's a war production for sure, but imo all the parts (except the stars and perlring) are silver coated and during time the silverwash has gone partly.
But what is it? When the chinscales would be gold, it might be a pioneer, when everything was silver, it could be infantry...

Cheers,

Adler 1

[Milton]

Thanks Adler. I can honestly say, in person, I don't see any traces of gilt wash anywhere on the helmet w/ the obvious exceptions of the "pearl ring" around the spike base,and the "stars". I believe that it's more than likely a line infantry officer's helmet, w/ silver colored fittings, done in a lower-quality "wartime expedient" finish. Thanks for commenting.