A Bavarian M1896 Stahlblechhelme

Adler

New member
About 5 years ago I posted this helmet, but at that time my photographic skills were below zero… So, I was thinking to do a reshoot, not saying I can take the best pictures of the entire world, but for me this helmet deserved better…

This helmet is the one that the company Gebr. Bing from Nürnberg sent to the Kriegsministerium in 1914 for acceptance. I think they also had another one sent, because there are two dates on the label.

The labels on Müster or Probe pieces are always fastened in a way they can’t be taken off without damaging the wax seal or the label. This was to prevent fraude or switching of the labeled piece…

This helmet is made as an M1896, but the body and visors are made of steel instead of leather. The M1896 is in fact the Bavarian version of the Prussian M1895 and was adopted by the Bavarian Infantry only. The cruciform spike base was changed to a rounded one and the squared front visor to a rounded one. The wappen was redesigned and was also made signifficantly smaller.

Adler
 
Fantastic...had one but certainly not a "Probe" Wow, how did these ever leave government hands? They all have the manufacturers name in red paint. Congrats!
 
The red paint was standard Bing. Bavaria tried to continue with the "status quo" probe system with the tags for a while. Karel's example is exceptional! The documents posted by Meldahl from the archives are well worth digesting to see how Bavaria struggled with ersatz.
 
Back
Top