New member with an oddball tin ersatz

USMC-EOD

USMC-EOD

Active member
Good evening gentlemen,

I'm a new member and I'm jumping right in. I've been collecting pickelhaubes off and on for most of my life. Nothing major (enlisted M-15s and ersatz mostly), but I decided to see if any of you have ever run across this variant of the tin "kit" helmet (eisenblech?).

I've seen a couple of others just like this, and all of them seem to differ from the standard by having the same coat of green paint over the factory black, a screwed in wappen with no back holder soldered on for the wedge, no brass front peak trim or holes to the sides for attaching the front peak trim, and no holes in the back or on the neck guard for attaching a brass spine. The ersatz spikes on this one and the others I've seen are also made of steel rather than brass and are factory black painted with a coat of green paint put on after final assembly. Notice also in the photos that the typical slot cut in the helmet's front for the long central holding wedge is absent and a screw-sized hole is there instead.


Helmet with front plate
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Outside of helmet with wappen removed
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Inside of the helmet showing the three holes with the lower "screw hole" rather than the "slot"
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First image showing the back of the paper thin brass wappen and the screw, washer and nut.
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Last image showing the back of the wappen. The typical factory soldered-on holder was never installed. The rust on the wappen is from the helmet.
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Hopefully my pictures are not clear as mud. If anyone is interested, I'll post some more tomorrow. A looong but fun weekend with my son's Boy Scout Troop and the Red Sox losing the ALCS means that I'm hitting the rack after this. Thanks in advance to Tony who dragged himself out of his sick bed to help me out with this picture-posting stuff. Semper Fi Mac.

Bryan.
 
Seems like my directions at picture posting were not as garbled as I thought. Bryan and I discussed this one for some time over the summer, I had never seen one like this before. The key in my mind, is that there are no solder marks from any sort of attachment anything on the back of the Wappen. They just took a right-off-the-press Wappen, drilled a hole in the front and bolted it on. Bizarre?
 
This is different! There seems to be some marking in the top of the helmet crown. Can you read it? I'm interested in the threads on the screw -- are they coarse or fine? Could I possibly see a close up? I have not seen one of these before, but we have seen a kit helmet with a hole in the wappen.

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Thanks again Hauptmann Tony.

I would probably still be "lurking" if it had not been for your encouragement. Get well soon.

Colonel J, the screw is fine threaded and is silver in color. There are traces of the green paint on it from when the helmet got it's coat of green after final assembly.
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The crown has nothing stamped inside of it. The bottom of the spike is bent/peened over under the base at this area of the crown. There are traces of the gold colored paint inside the helmet from the markings that are typically found inside this type of helmet.

I've seen a few photos of what I believe/think are German soldiers wearing this particular variation. They would be very easy to miss if someone had not run across one of them before.

One of these photos is on your web site in the article on ersatz helmets. The photo of the soldier with what is shown to be a paper mache helmet with a bend in the front peak is what I think is one of these helmets. The screw in the wappen looks like it is there (almost hard to tell) and the ridge where the front brim snaps in appears to be running along the front in this photo. My green kit helmet has a similar bend in the front peak.

Another photo is on page 128 of "Helmets of the First World War" by Haselgrove/Radovic on the top-center of the page. The screw in the wappen is very evident and the features of this kit helmet are very obvious if you have one of these green kit helmets in your hand while you look at the photo. The crease in the tin where the front peak snaps in can be seen peeking out at the sides under the chinstrap. The thin, folded over steel trim around the brim of the front peak can just be made out and is wider than the typical rolled rim of the one piece tin helmet. The caption lists this helmet as a one piece tin helmet.

There is also what I believe to be one in the photo of the large case mixed in with other ersatz types at the Belgian Army Museum that one of the forum members posted awhile back.

Because the spike is completely made of black painted steel and the wappen had such a slipshod method of attachment, I assumed that these were some of the last helmets of this type produced. I would be interested in hearing what other folks know about this variation of kit (eisenblech?) helmet and perhaps seeing photos of them.

Thank you very much Colonel J for hosting your very excellent web site "pickelhauben.net". I have gleaned a substantial amount of information from the excellent articles and information that you make available. I have recommended it to several of my friends.

Semper Fi,

Bryan.
 
Bryan,

http://pickelhaubes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=542&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=museum&start=15

This is the thread of the museum, could you point out that helmet? You could well be right about the Ersatz helmet photo. Actually I think it is all pretty interesting. I don't know if you have read the article on our other kit helmet?

http://www.pickelhauben.net/articles/BKa.htm

Are they somewhat similar? I have been kicking around this thread issue for a while, inconclusively. I am not sure when fine threads were started. I am fairly certain they were used on veterans helmets, but other than that I just do not know.

Everyone just calls me Joe. My wife and I both have the first initial of J. and were colonels in an earlier life. We formed an LLC years ago to handle the tax implications of this hobby. Also as a defensive move to protect us from the nut cases that are out there. Like the guy who claimed half of Canada as his own. Joe works just fine. And thank you for your comments. Just need to update the site one of these days -- priorities.
 
joerookery said:
//Like the guy who claimed half of Canada as his own. //
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Bryan, for the record, that was not me. That was some other nut. We are many up here...

You once had an enlargement of that helmet in the Brussels museum if I recall? And yea, I could see that bolt, dead-centre in the Wappen once you pointed it out. Could you post that here?
 
Sure Joe,

Thanks for letting me use your first name. I'm a Limited Duty Officer Captain who was pulled up from the Warrant Officer ranks like Tony. That and a mutual affinity for dachshunds and pickelhaubes got us yakking at each other while I was on this most recent deployment. It kind of makes me wonder if there is a Mexican Army officer down south with the same interests.

I could retire now but the Marine Corps is such an awesome organization that I really want to stick around for 30.

The picture of that museum is on a geek-stick back at my EOD shop. Joe-If you go to the second page of that thread and look at the eighth entry you will see a picture of a display cabinet full of ersatz tschakos (four rows) with the fifth row from the top having the helmet like mine. There is an M15 helmet next to a green painted and brass fitted single piece/stamped helmet and the next one to the left is what I am fairly sure is one like mine.

My helmet and the few I've seen like it are identical to the standard kit helmet (exact same maker) but do not have the front peak trim or holes for the rivets, no holes in the back for the rear spine, the hole versus the slot for the screwed on wappen, and a factory black steel spike (rather than brass) with the same base (made of steel rather than brass) with fake rivets. The spike and base are factory black painted just like the shell and were over-painted green upon final assembly.

I don't know much about when fine threads came into existence in history, but I'm pretty sure they were around in 1914/15 based on old telephones and weapons I've disassembled over the years. The screw looks like it is a standard, off the shelf affair and not something that was designed with affixing a wappen on a helmet in mind.

Joe, I hope that helps. If you run across another one of these sometime or find any pertinent info on it I would love to read about it.

I've got another oddball ersatz helmet that I will put out here in the next couple of days. Hopefully someone in the forum has run across one like it in the past.

Semper Fi,

Bryan.
 
identical to the standard kit helmet (exact same maker)
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Does it have the same marking? I found the picture you were citing, but it was too small for me to make anything out. If you get a chance in the future. Please post that close-up. thanks!
 
KAGGR 1870 said:
I am questioning about your screw This seem to have modern ISO thread Can you verify this
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It seems to me, that this is what makes this 'odd ball' Ersatz is so interesting. On a Wappen bolt (pre 1895 and private purchase), we expect a brass rough thread. But if you take apart a piece of 1st War German equipment, like a field telephone, or headset, or anything else, you will find fine machine screws like the one on this helmet. Period photos that Bryan has mentioned, show these Ersatz helmets with this small bolt on the front holding on the Wappen.... and there are no signs of loops on the reverse....so it seems, that the company that slapped these together, used a machine screw.
 
Bryan....welcome to the forum and many thanks for this posting. I was completely unaware of this new version of the ersatz tin haube. Fantastic!! Luckily, I have never come accross one of these or I would probably not have bought it due to the presence of that screw in the wappen. Like Tony, I love these ersatz variants as they are a true testimony to the substitute head space of the German manufacturers. Brian
 
Thanks Brian (with an "I"),

I have a few more pictures of these with the same type of screw that I mostly lifted from photos I found on the web. I've seen another in person as well. I like to keep interesting images for my own reference, but I would not like to use another person's helmet image on your site to bolster my findings without their permission. I find that comparative images really help to round out my constantly growing reference library. I really like the ersatz stuff as well. It covered such a short period of time in the evolution of the pickelhaube and every one of them is a "time of war" vintage piece. The variations are legion, and awesome.

Man, do I love this hobby. I am really grateful to all of you who made this site possible.

Semper Fi,

Bryan (with a "Y").
 
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