American Officer's M1880 Sun Helmet

Peter_Suciu

Well-known member
September was great for my collection - but bad for the bank account. In addition to the cannon and the Canadian helmet I also found this fantastic American helmet!

This came from the collection of Ed Burka, a long time member of the Company of Military Historians. It also had gotten the thumbs up from noted collector and author Mark Kasal. It is an officer's version of the Model 1880 sun helmet, with a doeskin fabric covering the cork shell. Gordon Chappell noted a similar helmet in his 1967 book "Summer Helmets of the U.S. Army 1875-1910."

It came with a period storage tin and Ed said it had been with the helmet when he bought it almost 50 years ago. The "chain of custody" on this helmet thus goes pretty far back. I plan to keep everything together. It came with the gloves and helmet accoutrements. Close examination suggests that the spike was worn at some point. The infantry side buttons may have been on another helmet - such as the officer's horsehair plume helmet. I'm rather pleased to have this one.

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RON said:
And quite close to the French model..

I think most of these helmets are pretty similar actually. The American pattern is still four panels, whereas the French helmets are six panels.

Here are some photos (not great I'll admit) of my colonial helmet collection. Most of these date from 1870 to 1920, but a few are a later. It shows that these helmets mostly followed similar designs. I have French, Monaco, Germany, Austria, Argentina, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia (New South Wales) and New Zealand. Not seen in the photos I have some police style helmets from various Italian and Swiss cities (they use this pattern in the summer). Total I have 36 of this "colonial" pattern.

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Great collection !!!

....with crossed Khukri's 8)

Is there a King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery uniform ??? in your collection ???

Thank you !

Francis
 
Khukri said:
Great collection !!!

....with crossed Khukri's 8)

Is there a King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery uniform ??? in your collection ???

Thank you. Yes, those are my two khukris, and that is a Royal Horse Artillery tunic and busby.
 
The Kaiserliche East Asian M1902 (1st Photo: 1st row, 2nd column from the left) would be my favorite... The mother of all Tropenhelme IMO =P~

Is this the one that was sold sometime back by Age of Kings?

And if I'm not mistaken, the one right under would be the model which was copied from the French (left of it in your display)? Was it the one worn in Africa & Cameroon by the Schütztruppe (M1896)?
 
RON said:
The Kaiserliche East Asian M1902 (1st Photo: 1st row, 2nd column from the left) would be my favorite... The mother of all Tropenhelme IMO =P~

Is this the one that was sold sometime back by Age of Kings?

And if I'm not mistaken, the one right under would be the model which was copied from the French (left of it in your display)? Was it the one worn in Africa & Cameroon by the Schütztruppe (M1896)?

The Kaiserliche East Asian M1902 was purchased in 2007 from Regimentals at SOS. I was nervous flying home with that helmet. I flew from Louisville to Chicago, and in Chicago had Row 1 First Class. I managed to trade seats with the person in Row 2 so I could put it at my feet until take off and then it was in my lap the rest of the time.

The other one is the traditional colonial pattern that was first adopted by the British, used by the French, etc. It is similar to the French 1878 pattern. The major powers (and even some not-so-major powers) seems to have used this pattern at one point. I think it was following the success of the British in their colonies. Even the Russians apparently adopted it for their brief African adventure. That would be a true "holy grail" for a sun helmet collector. I wrote about it on my MilitarySunHelmets.com site: http://www.militarysunhelmets.com/2014/the-russian-colonial-pattern-sun-helmet" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 
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