First (partial) Pickelhaube - Advice appreciated!

M

Mike9999

Member
Hello Folks -

First post, but a long time collector of Great War materials. For some reason I never picked up a pickelhaube. Always stuck with the steel lids.

However, broke the trend and finally acquired a 'partial' that I would like to restore and display with the collection. My knowledge of pickelhaubes is very limited, what I know is mostly gleaned from your excellent ring of sites.

Well, to the pickelhaube. It is I believe a M1915.

Grey painted trim with vent in the back and removeable spike. Missing front plate (wappen), cockades and chinstrap. Has a twelve fingered liner of thin two piece leather with all the fingers intact. There are two sets of holes for the wappen, one set ~83mm. apart with brass grommets and the second slightly offset, no grommets and ~73mm. apart. There is a name under the front brim that looks to have been scrubbed, looks like "Hintz?" Under the back brim it has a stamp that has been painted over, a lower case, white handpainted script 't' as you find the postfixes on riflesm, pistols, etc. and a stamp of "B.J.A. VIII" over "1918 F."

From Jeff Noll's book, this is the Eighth Armee Corp Clothing Repair Depot stamp.

All in all, to me, it looks to be in quite nice shape. Based on my other collecting observations, I would say it has not been reworked by a collector. Don't see a shadow of any wappen on the front. I would size is ~7 in today's sizes.

My questions include...

1. How should I go about conserving, restoring.
2. What would the correct wappen, strap, cockades be?
3. Why were they refurbishing these in 1918??? It is a definite sharp 1918. Thought at first 1916 seemed more logical.

And any other questions I'm not knowledgeable enough to ask!

Just got through some major surgery so can't post photos right now, but if I know what to look for or what would help with your assessment, Will be glad to do so in a bit.

Thanks very much and best regards!
Mike
 
Mike,

Welcome to the forum and walk towards the light! You have some extremely well-thought-out questions. I think Tony, Brian, and a host of many others have got more experience than I do at restoring anything. Tony also has the best reference on the line bar none. The tremendous point is that you are asking.

I will try to talk about the marks. 1918 is possible. These were used inside the home country by various recruit depots and Landsturm organizations right up until the end. It clearly is a repair job that has been cleared for reissue with the letter "f". This was done by VIII Corps. So you can geographically kind of limit where it was repaired not where it was originally issued. There was an entire bureaucracy of salvage. These guys would collect anything from the battlefield and send it back into the home country for reuse. Where the double holes part of the repair effort? Were they done by some previous collector? There are a million questions to ask and you are right online!

We hope you recover from surgery soon. Not all of us are as able-bodied as you would like to be. Love to see pictures of this helmet -- when you are able. In the meantime probe away -- it is why we collect.
 
Hi Joe -

Thanks very much for your encouragement and great information. Especially interesting, and makes much sense, is the reuse of materials for the 'Secondary Market.'I have several photos of post battle scrounging and a couple of period reworked rifles. May be me, but I find these well used examples most interesting.

Do you suppose it is possible, given the rework date, that this was never reissued, or reissued without a wappen? Flaunting my ignorance here! :D

I hope to have some help setting up for photos, and will post them as soon as possible. Looking forward to making ths my 'picklehaube example.'

- Best regards, Mike
 
Hey Mike,
The 1918 date would not indicate that it was not reissued, I also have an m15 that was reworked in 1918. As Joe says, the Pickelhauben were still in use in areas where the Stahlhelm was not used. The helmet would not have been reissued with out a Wappen, and the brass gromets on the first holes indicate that this was an M95 helmet that was converted to a M15, the brass fixtures were removed and replaced with steel to recover the brass, the gromets were usually left in place, as there was not enough brass to be worth the extra work to repair the holes (in my opinion).
best wishes
Gus
 
Mike,

the reuse of materials for the 'Secondary Market.'I have several photos of post battle scrounging
Click to expand...

I wish I had more of the answers! Interesting term "secondary market". From what I am able to determine so far there were two such markets. Before the war the corps sold off old and used issue stuff to private purchasers sort of like military surplus. I believe this also includes some weapons There was also the resale of private purchase items from one consumer to the other.

Once the war started the salvage organizations picked up battlefield debris and sent it back to the BJA or other depots depending on the item. As time went on the amount of items picked up increased -- this became a source of raw materials for production. Cron details a lot of this organization in his book. It is all high-level organization and he deals out throughout the book in small packages. I too wish the book was better organized.
 
Mike,

I can't let Colonel Joe undersell himself here. If Tony has the best reference site, Joe probably has the second best - a wealth of research, particularly on clothing depot system and markings. Click on his link to www.pickelhauben.net , highly recommended!

Mike
 
Thanks Mike not deserved -- if only I could make this voice typewriter force me to proofread or organize! :D
 
Hey Joe, I will back up Mike on this, your mouth typewriter may have problems with homonyms, but at least it spells the wrong word right. You do a great job, while most of us sit on our butts and let you do the work.
Bes tihwess
Gsu
 
Well, from the new guy on the block's point of view, the sites that you folks have put together are tremendous. And, much appreciated by one who is venturing into the field for the first time. Many thanks to all!
 
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