A gift from a Friend

D

Daniel Murphy

New member
All,
My best friend contacted me some time ago and told me he had a spiked helmet he wanted to give to me. On the way to his house, all kinds of thoughts went through my head. Okay, he knows what I have, it must be something rare that he got a good deal on? Maybe something that needs some repair, or perhaps just a plain 1915 in good shape? He knows I like the ersatz types maybe one of those? When I got to his house, he fiddled around and toyed with me and I finally said " Enough already where is it?" Well my hopes were a little dashed, when he reached in his pocket and pulled out this. It was more rusty and the brass had turned green and it was this miniature spiked helmet. It is about 3 inches tall. As I examined it, I saw the slot in the back and through that slot, I saw something inside....
Dan Murphy



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As you can see it has the Hohenzollern eagle instead of the line eagle, is complete with chinscales and is one of the rare tin ersatz varieties :roll: Here is a 3/4 side view. Inside of it I could see a strip of cloth with numbers on it and asked my friend for a paper clip to try to retrieve the end of it. To put it mildly, I was surprised what I found.....
Dan Murphy

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Hi Dan:

Is it a bank? Did you find a gold coin inside?

Chas.
 
I found out that this little helmet had a purpose other than just being cute. It was a ladies tape measure. The spike is attached to a pin around which is wound this tape measure and the spike is what is turned to pull the tape back inside. The tape measure is in centimeters on one side AND in INCHES on the other side. It measures a total of 40 inches long (and an equivalent number of centimeters). This side of the tape shows the cm and shows how small this is.
Dan Murphy

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Here is the bottom, which shows the method of construction and the pin protruding from the bottom, is the one attached to the spike as stated above. Unfortunately no gold coins, although that would have made my day as well. :lol:
Dan Murphy

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Very cool! I have only senn one of those before and that was on Ebay years agao, you ahve a nice friend!

James
 
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