Fireman pickelhaube?

[James D.N.MacKenzie]

Gentlemen, I found a haube at the fleamarket on Boxing Day. Was a bit reluctant to buy it at first, with the missing peak and neck flap, but so few turn up in South Africa that I went ahead and bought it.

I can see leather plugs filling the four holes where the original spike was screwed on and that has been replaced by a brass "comb". It has a rampant horse over "ALTENSEELBACH" badge on the front.

Is a helmet like this worth trying to refurbish? Can anyone tell me what period this would have been used?

Many thanks

 

[b.loree]

Hi James:
Welcome to the forum and thanks for the post. What you have, is an example of war surplus. Many hauben were converted to fireman use after the war and presumably sold to city fire departments. This accounts for the leather plugs in the original spike base holes etc. All extra holes were plugged and a bit of finish put on them to seal them up. I have seen examples where new liners were also stitched in. These helmets would have been put into use during the 1920s.
As to restoring the helmet, I would leave it as is. If you try to put it back into miliary configuration, you will just have a helmet that was obviuosly converted to fireman use. Extra holes were punched into the shell to fix the comb on. The comb itself will have put a large dent in the shell which can not be removed. So I would accept it as it is...a legitimate example of what happened to pickelhauben after WW1 and a German firemans' helmet. Brian