Jaap Verduijn
New member
Rummaging in my basement where some rusty stuff from my dozens of vacations in the Verdun and Meuse/Argonne area is still resting, I also encountered this long forgotten French helmet: the well-known Adrian, with the "Soldat de la Grande Guerre" emblem. I must have flung it downstairs long, looooong ago and never looked at it again. I seem to remember that originally it was nice horizon-bleu, and all the leather was in a decent shape. Pity I didn't take better care of it, but after I had to part with my second Pickelhaube collection I couldn't (out of pure self-pity ) stand the sight of anything military anymore. Besides, anything not-Pickelhaube was just the icing on the cake, never the cake itself so Stahlhelme and Adrians finished up in the oddest, dustiest and/or wettest places of my house and even garden. Unloved.
And then, bloody hell, on the internet I encounter a not too bad looking Pickelfake, I buy it for a pittance, and immediately I'm lost. Helplessly back in the iron grip of Pickelhaube Fever, even to the extend that I have recovered this helmet plus a German M17, and four military knives that were once part of yet another collection: military cutlery.
And then there's the sad illustrated story of the flattened spike, which I will tell you in another section of this forum. It's only human to occasionally enjoy some "Schadenfreude", which you undoubtedly will after reading the story of the flattened spike ! It will be coming up later today, or possibly tomorrow.
And then, bloody hell, on the internet I encounter a not too bad looking Pickelfake, I buy it for a pittance, and immediately I'm lost. Helplessly back in the iron grip of Pickelhaube Fever, even to the extend that I have recovered this helmet plus a German M17, and four military knives that were once part of yet another collection: military cutlery.
And then there's the sad illustrated story of the flattened spike, which I will tell you in another section of this forum. It's only human to occasionally enjoy some "Schadenfreude", which you undoubtedly will after reading the story of the flattened spike ! It will be coming up later today, or possibly tomorrow.