EM liners

pickelhauben

pickelhauben

Well-known member
Hey Guys,

There is a thread on Off liners but no thread on the EM .

I have most of all the EM liners

Black fingers
Tan fingers
square fingers
Uhlan folded over fingers

I have a black painted tin Wurt ersatz with brass hardware .

The plate attaches with a tube through the shell . Has brass front visor trim ( yes ) pressed spike with foux studs. And the rear spine stops about 1/3 of an inch from the spike plate.

The liner looks worn and original to the helmet and has thin fingers . The size is almost the same size of human fingers. I have never seen fingers this small.

Would this be a post war add on or have you all seen this before ?








 
I have the same helmet. Mine came out of Colonel Rankin's private collection, with provenance, and has the same snap on the back of the liner.



I don't have a photo of the liner but it is paper thin. It looks similar to yours and I thought that it just got stretched out because it was such thin leather.

One thing that is unusual about my helmet is that it has a vented rear spine. I have seen photos of these and there is one pictured in Bowman's book, but until this helmet I did not know how they were made. The rear spine tab is pressed into the helmet with the spike base and the screw post is inserted through the rear neck guard. Very unusual.

John :)
 
So , John
you go back to Col. Rankin ?
His book is what got me started
that was about 1970
Do you back beyond that ?
I never knew Rankin or his collection
But I did know 2 collectors who's
helmets and steins were shown in his book .
Walter Eric Hartmann
and
Cliff Foster
Foster was stationed in Germany
and a lot of things while he was there
He retired to Memphis .
I still have an original oil on canvas painting
done in the 1890's of Kaiser Wilhelm II
in his Garde du Corp helmet and uniform
that I bought from Cliff Foster .
The painting is signed by the artist .
Steve
 
SkipperJohn said:
I have the same helmet. Mine came out of Colonel Rankin's private collection, with provenance, and has the same snap on the back of the liner.



I don't have a photo of the liner but it is paper thin. It looks similar to yours and I thought that it just got stretched out because it was such thin leather.

One thing that is unusual about my helmet is that it has a vented rear spine. I have seen photos of these and there is one pictured in Bowman's book, but until this helmet I did not know how they were made. The rear spine tab is pressed into the helmet with the spike base and the screw post is inserted through the rear neck guard. Very unusual.

John :)
Click to expand...

Hey John,

Thanks for the reply. I feel a little better . That was the same thing I thought . The fingers have stretched . In reality it looks almost like they took a standard liner split the tongues in half scalloped the bottom of the split and doubled the fingers.

Surprising that this has not shown up in any reference books.

I wonder if this is exclusive to Wurt tins , along with the brass visor trim.
 
Nice helmets guys! The liner looks as if the leather has just stretched, making the fingers appear thinner.

:D Ron
 
poniatowski said:
Nice helmets guys! The liner looks as if the leather has just stretched, making the fingers appear thinner.

:D Ron
Click to expand...

Looking at it again and counting fingers on other helmets.

You could be right.

Maybe lamb skin or pig skin used as the leather.
 
Very nice helmets gentlemen and rare. These are from a family of helmets which have been discussed here before. We call them "kit helmets" simply because there is no stitching and all the pieces were made to snap on or be pressed on. The liner has no stitching but again came as a single unit which was pressed on and locked in place. The liners are also made of a softer less stiff leather like that used for gloves, they are totally different from the usual ones we see.
The most common kit helmets, are Prussian as usual and I have a pristine example in my collection. The single loop on the back of the wappen is another characteristic of these helmets and generally a piece of cane was passed through this to fasten it to the shell. Other characteristics as seen on your helmets.....a thin stamped wappen, a dome fastener holding the edges of the liner together and an octagonal nut on the end of the rear spine. As was mentioned there is usually no vent in the spine, mine does not have one. My helmet also has a felt skull cap which goes up inside the shell to pad it from the wearer's head. I don't know whether this was standard or not. Col Joe even posted a picture of these helmets being shown with soldaten who obviously were putting them together. These Wurtt versions are quite rare as really all members of this "family" are. Congrats!
 
b.loree said:
Very nice helmets gentlemen and rare. These are from a family of helmets which have been discussed here before. We call them "kit helmets" simply because there is no stitching and all the pieces were made to snap on or be pressed on. The liner has no stitching but again came as a single unit which was pressed on and locked in place. The liners are also made of a softer less stiff leather like that used for gloves, they are totally different from the usual ones we see.
The most common kit helmets, are Prussian as usual and I have a pristine example in my collection. The single loop on the back of the wappen is another characteristic of these helmets and generally a piece of cane was passed through this to fasten it to the shell. Other characteristics as seen on your helmets.....a thin stamped wappen, a dome fastener holding the edges of the liner together and an octagonal nut on the end of the rear spine. As was mentioned there is usually no vent in the spine, mine does not have one. My helmet also has a felt skull cap which goes up inside the shell to pad it from the wearer's head. I don't know whether this was standard or not. Col Joe even posted a picture of these helmets being shown with soldaten who obviously were putting them together. These Wurtt versions are quite rare as really all members of this "family" are. Congrats!
Click to expand...


You were saying kit helmets that made me start to think repro.

Glad you brought me back with rare.
 
KAGGR#1 said:
So , John
you go back to Col. Rankin ?
His book is what got me started
that was about 1970
Do you back beyond that ?
I never knew Rankin or his collection
But I did know 2 collectors who's
helmets and steins were shown in his book .
Walter Eric Hartmann
and
Cliff Foster
Foster was stationed in Germany
and a lot of things while he was there
He retired to Memphis .
I still have an original oil on canvas painting
done in the 1890's of Kaiser Wilhelm II
in his Garde du Corp helmet and uniform
that I bought from Cliff Foster .
The painting is signed by the artist .
Steve
Click to expand...

I did not know the Colonel. We both served in the Marine Corps but I went in over a decade after the Colonel retired. I was on active duty when he died. When the Colonel passed his collection went to his family, who cared little about it. One of the doctors who attended the Colonel in his last days received this helmet. I subsequently bought it from him. Unfortunately this helmet is not pictured in his book.

The helmet is a tin Wuerttemberg:



The unusual aspect of this helmet is that the rear spine is vented. The tab on the spine is folded at the very end and pressed in with the spike base:



The liner is identical to yours and there is a fiber insert:




When assembled the inside paint cannot be seen:



The liner leather is paper thin.
This is not a very attractive helmet, and in combat could prove to be quite hazardous.



Sorry it took so long to get back to you with an answer.

John :)
 
John
It seems the rear spine is an ad on as it is the wrong one
There has to be a rear spine on it but it is bolted on it on the shell itself and on the rear visor not like yours shown it should be like the one in the top pictures of this topic

Is it firm on the shell or can you wiggle the spine
Stil a hard to find example :thumb up:

Jonas
 
kaiser said:
John
It seems the rear spine is an ad on as it is the wrong one
There has to be a rear spine on it but it is bolted on it on the shell itself and on the rear visor not like yours shown it should be like the one in the top pictures of this topic

Is it firm on the shell or can you wiggle the spine
Stil a hard to find example :thumb up:

Jonas
Click to expand...

The rear spine is quite firm on the helmet and does not appear to have ever been off. The spine would have surely been damaged if removal had ever been attempted. There is a similar version photographed in J.A. Bowman's book, The Pickelhaube, Volume 2, on page 127. There is also one pictured on page 66 of Eric Johansson's book Pickelhauben, but there is no specific mention of the rear spine. It does mention; however, that some of these helmets were made from existing parts.
I doubt the German Army would waste existing parts if it could be avoided.

John :)
 
Great helmet with some excellent History. I would just like to point out....the liner has grommets in the holes for the draw string like an OR tschapka. I have never seen this before on an OR haube liner. As well, the gold paint used indicate size ?? on the inside top of the shell (like mine), a square nut on the spine tang, instead of the usual octagonal one. This just shows us once again, that there are few "absolutes" in haube collecting. Good to see also the felt skull cap pad is still present which as I said, mine has as well.
 
b.loree said:
Great helmet with some excellent History. I would just like to point out....the liner has grommets in the holes for the draw string like an OR tschapka. I have never seen this before on an OR haube liner. As well, the gold paint used indicate size ?? on the inside top of the shell (like mine), a square nut on the spine tang, instead of the usual octagonal one. This just shows us once again, that there are few "absolutes" in haube collecting. Good to see also the felt skull cap pad is still present which as I said, mine has as well.
Click to expand...

I have another OR Haube with grommets on the liner for the drawstring, but it is sewn in the back and does not include the snap. Tony has one on his website pictured here:
http://www.kaisersbunker.com/dunkelblau/helmets/dbh37.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
His helmet is a Wuert as well.
I never really thought about the square nut before, and until this forum I would have probably suspected an octagonal as being a replacement.
The history is what really attracts me to this helmet. Colonel Rankin probably gave five bucks for it!

John :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top