Older fakes/prop question urban legend.

M

morel5000

Member
Hi All,

I come from the iron cross "collection world" where there is a guy called "Floch" who made fake iron crosses. Three piece and it did fool a lot of collectors.

I recently heard that there was an Englishman who made/ put together Pickelhaubes in the 80ies? 90ies?
Could this be true? Anyone knows of a pickelhaube faker, a mysterious equivalent "Floch" guy? Any pictures of such haubes if they exist?

Thanks,
Michel
:guns:
 
Do you have a copy of the book "Pickelhauben (Spiked Helmets)" by Eric Johansson? It's full of a lot of "old fakes" and other questionable helmets.
 
Hi Michel

The book was published in 1982, and was the first major work in English since Colonel Rankin’s book “Helmets and Headress of the Imperial German Army 1870-1918” which was published in 1965. Pickelhauben is basically a pretty picture book, photographs are small and not much detail to them. However, I was happy to add it to my library when it was published as we had few other information sources in English available to us at that time.

Some of the pieces illustrated in Pickelhauben are attributed to the collection of the author and another early, well thought of collector by the name of Norm Hobson. Dr. Johansson was also one of the founders and editors of the early collectors journal Kaiserzeit, a well respected publication, I subscribed for several years myself. He also worked for a time for Manions Auction. Although I never met the gentleman his name was well known in collecting circles.

Perhaps some of the notoriety regarding the book comes from the fact that it was published by House of Swords and Militaria. If you do a search for that business name you will come up with some interesting reading.

Cheers :thumb up:

Larry
 
UUGH good old House of Swords, Mr. Walters was a treat to deal with. I remember getting one of his catalgos which had literally 50 or 60 pickelhaubes in it, when i called to buy one, they where always all sold, even when the catalog just came out? He was always notorious for making High quality Confederate swords....

Still, I kept all the old catalogs, and still look at them from time to time and drool at the prices of the old days.

James
 
J.LeBrasseur said:
UUGH good old House of Swords, Mr. Walters was a treat to deal with. I remember getting one of his catalgos which had literally 50 or 60 pickelhaubes in it, when i called to buy one, they where always all sold, even when the catalog just came out? He was always notorious for making High quality Confederate swords....

Still, I kept all the old catalogs, and still look at them from time to time and drool at the prices of the old days.

James
Click to expand...

I have some good helmets from House of Swords. I learned to order with the highest shipping (overnight or next day, I think) and then go right to the Pickelhaube as soon as it arrived. He sold me a nice Saxon Infantry Officer; Prussian EM infantry reserve with a matching Uberzug, a nice Grenadier (Reg 8, if I remember without looking) my first 'brass trim' Prussian EM and a JzP M15. I also purchased a 'War Ministry NCO', which turned out to be a General a'la Suite with the silver all scrubbed from the front of the 'eagle', a Filzhaube infantry and one artillery. So I did quite a bit with him, but like everybody else, you had to be careful at times.

:D Ron
 
This is all very interesting. I searched for the book and it is quite expensive (at least for my wallet). So I came across this one, which I hope I have bought.. (no confirmation yet 8-[ )
Herrmann, R., Militärische Kopfbedeckungen der Kaiserzeit.

About the dubious helmets.. where the wappen as detailed from the front as from the back? Can anyone provide a link or a picture of a so called "older dubious helmet"?

Thanks,
Michel
 
My apologies Michel, I didn’t address your original question, instead went off on a tangent as I too often do.

I know of Johannes Floch, as I purchased some EK2’s from him at one of the early SOS Shows held at the Drawbridge Hotel in Kentucky, this was before the show moved to Louisville. After I found out the crosses were bad, I returned them to him and he did refund my money. He still sets up at Louisville by the way.

As far as bogus Pickelhaubes go, my main story to relate was while attending one of the David Cook Gun & Militaria Shows in Dallas in the early 1990’s, likely 91 or 92 at the latest. Eastern Europe had just opened up and lots of new and interesting items were coming on to the market, especially WWII and earlier Soviet Orders & Medals (beware, tangent alert :lol: ).

At any rate, at that show an English medals dealer, now retired, had three Macedonian Felt Kugelhelms, all near identical, all near new just showing what I took for storage age. Having just returned from the UK where the helmets were purchased, the seller showed me a photograph of an original crate of these rare helmets at the dealers store in England were he had purchased them. All were packed in excelsior, dusty and dirty from a long storage.

Needless to say I bought them all, I had too, the price was right and they were soooo cool. I put one out on our table for sale at that same Dallas Show. Later, a well respected and knowledgeable local expert happened by, picked up the helmet, inspected it and said, “you know Larry, they are making these in Eastern Europe”. I couldn’t believe it, they were perfect (of course they were, they the first ones I had ever seen) I said these came from a reputable source (and they did). After he walked away, I took a hard look at the helmets. He was right, the felt bodies were soft, way too soft and there was a uniform wash of muddy water on the liners and interiors to give the impression of age. They were bad, ….dammit.

I took the helmets back to the dealer I purchased them from, explained the situation to him and he returned my money. He couldn’t believe they were bad helmets either, his source, he said, was impeccable, as he was told the helmets were found in storage in the Czech Republic. Who knows where they really came from….Caveat Emptor. ](*,)

Larry
 
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