Officer Spike Variations

[b.loree]

Its foto essay day here in Barrie! Having fun playing with spare parts! Hopefully, this effort will be interesting to some members. So, we all know that different manufacturers produced different variations within the so called strict regulations of the General staff. I do not know why everything was not standardized prior to the war. However, having just taught the Industrial Revolution to my G12's it is probably due to the fact that mass production was relatively new as was the concept of interchangeable parts. The officer spike tops as we shall see here are definitely not interchangeable and us old collector veterans know that one spike does not fit all! Here are the pics:

Three different diameters of holes and 3 separate top designs!! In addition, these are all pre war spikes.
Next 2 pioneer officer spikes, the one on the left is a mid war style with zinc base and neck, the spike top is a proper pre war silver but shorter than the totally pre war quality of the one on the right:

Mid war, we find all kinds of different combinations of zinc parts with brass on these officer helmets. My Garde officer helme for example, has all fittings zinc with gold wash except (thank God) for the wappen which is pre war quality. Some further examples:
Here a brass top and pearl ring with other zinc parts:

Finally, a comparison of an older pre 1890's officer spike with a more modern pre war one......with a little surprise!

The older spike on the right, demonstrates the short stature of the 1870's. The base brads are different but original according to Randy T. Perhaps a one year volunteer spike?? Comments are welcomed as usual.
NB: The original photos in this post were destroyed by the PBucket meltdown. They are now hosted in SmugMug 2019-04-19.

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[stuka f]

Intresting, thanks for the effort!
cheers
|<ris

 

[Jeff1959]

Thanks - very interesting

 

[Khukri]

Thank you for sharing.

Francis

 

[joerookery]

Great photo essay! Never seen such brads. A while ago Aaran posted a comparison of the lips of Bavarian vs. general's spikes. Perhaps he can repost that here?

 

[poniatowski]

Here's another type of officer spike. Most have a graceful parabolic curve from the bottom of the spike itself to it's tip ('spike' being the top, removable section). This particular spike, which I've seen on other helmets, has a curve near the bottom then is almost straight the rest of the way up. At its center, the inward curve is only about 1.5mm, which isn't much! Is this just me, or is this a variant of officer spike?



Ron

 

[b.loree]

Hard to say Ron...the difference is so minimal. Probably just one of those many manufacturer's differences that this thread illustrates. Nice helme!

 

[poniatowski]

Thanks Brian! Compared to other officer spikes, it is noticable in person.... like you said, probably just the manufacturer.

Ron

 

[Redlegwolf]

Great thread! Very helpful!

 

[poniatowski]

Not in the best condition, a wartime officer spike I found being sold as a 'lamp finial'.



Ron

 

[b.loree]

Great post Ron and one that definitely belongs here! The pieces shown look to be totally zinc which someone has sprayed with gold paint....Correct??

 

[poniatowski]

Great post Ron and one that definitely belongs here! The pieces shown look to be totally zinc which someone has sprayed with gold paint....Correct??

Yes, It was gold when I bought it. Were any painted or were they just left zinc? It would be easy to remove the paint.

Ron

 

[RON]

The Spike on my M1915 Prussian Inf. Off. unscrews only at its base and has rather sharp edges where the cone rim is soldered to the pearlring neck:

 

[joerookery]

http://bookstore.authorhouse.com/Products/SKU-000218815/Neumann--M" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;üller-Imperial-German-Military-Catalogues.aspx
Now $28.99

 

[Khukri]

Great catalogues !

Francis

 

[poniatowski]

I've posted this elsewhere, but maybe it should go here too. This is post WWI from what I know (no imperial trappings on the wappen), but is a variation of Joe's Koffer-Helm. It came in a standard conical case (I bought it from a fellow Harley rider :wink: ) The top of the spike doesn't screw off.



Ron

 

[b.loree]

Great post Ron, that's exactly what we need here....post war fire officer helme from the Rhineland. The one I sold recently was exactly the same as yours only not in as great condition. Mine had rolled newspaper in it to pad out the liner. The news paper was dated to the 1920's and I believe if memory serves the title translated to "Miner".

 

[b.loree]

One of the very cool things about being a restoration guy, is that I get to handle many different pickelhauben and their parts. Not many people on the planet get to take these valuable pieces apart and get a close look at their fittings. At the moment, I have 2 neusilber officer spikes of different sizes from Scout17 plus I have a Pioneer officer spike of my own to form a trio for comparison. My pioneer spike top does not unscrew which is correct for pioneer. The other two do but as usual the spike top from one does not match up with the other. This is typical of all Imperial pieces....you could spend $250+US on Ebay for an original leather chin strap only to find that it will not fit over the M91 posts on your helmet! I have chin straps in my collection which will not fit the helmets I have which need straps but that is the way things go in the world of Hauben!

My pioneer officer spike is the shortest one on the right. Note the tall fashion spike on the left, these look really great on an officer helmet. I have cleaned the first 2 but not mine as yet. My pioneer officer haube has been in pieces for many years while I work on other people's hats!

Note the hexagon nut soldered to the inside of the spike neck. We had a member recently who stated that the Hex nut was invented in 1850. This turn of the century piece supports this.

 

[Sandmann]

Note the hexagon nut soldered to the inside of the spike neck. We had a member recently who stated that the Hex nut was invented in 1850. This turn of the century piece supports this.

I’ve read that Sir Joseph Whitworth invented a massproduction of hexagonal Nuts around 1840/50 in a Forum but I didn’t find an official Document there.
But here is a Link to a „Google-Books“-Edition of „Register of Art and Science“ from 1827. On Page 264 is a Patent of an invention with a hexagonal Nut.
It’s not the Patent I was looking for, but it may also supports that a Hexagonal-Nuts could be used before WW1.

Link:
https://books.google.de/books?id=BCY1AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA264&lpg=PA264&dq=invention+hexagon+nut&source=bl&ots=k8rkz5COUk&sig=JK7669t1UcrfgN8xrDvoff3cPrk&hl=de&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi2nbbao8vWAhXoCMAKHalkA9s4ChDoAQg3MAM#v=onepage&q=264&f=false" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[b.loree]

It's been raining here for the last 24 hrs but has finally stopped.... good conditions for a photo shoot! Doing restorations forces me to keep original fittings on hand so that when a customer sends me a haube with something missing then hopefully I have it. I was looking at my officer spike collection today and discovered that I had 5 all of different heights. So why not post on the forum? The spikes:

The smallest of these dates measures approx 8.8 cm ( a little shy of 3.5" for our American friends) and probably dates from 1867-1870. The model 1867 haube marked the conversion from cruciform spike bases to round base for infantry and artillery. The tallest of these which I like to refer to as "fashion spikes" stands 12.9 cm or 5 1/16" and is probably from the 1890's when we know that the "spike height" had gotten out of control among officers. There is a great picture of young Bismark after the Franco Prussian in Larcade vol.1 showing him wearing a short spike haube.

Two fashion spikes showing a difference in the taper of the spike cone. The one on the right is finer and slightly taller.

The long and the short of it.

I had to throw in a Bavarian for James as we all know he has a monster Bavarian haube collection. :thumb up:

This one is unique in that the front arm has a soldered screw post instead of the usual small flat head split brad.

Prussian Dragoner style on the left.