Private purchase picklehaub

B

badger51

New member
Hello Gentelmen
Would appreciate any comments on this recent find. Seems to be Officer's perlring and stars on the haarbush but NCO kokarden and an enlisted man's helmet plate
 
Hi Badger, Welcome to the forum! Joe, Brian and others are more up on the regulations regarding private purchase helmets, so I'll let them comment. What kind of liner is in it? Does 'Badger' indicate another Wisconsinite?

:D Ron
 
i wil folow ron as i do not know that mutch about officer helmets
i collect the feldgraue section
but never the less you will get the answors to your questions here from other members :wink:
and for now welcome to you here

jonas
 
By badger51:
Seems to be Officer's perlring and stars on the haarbush but NCO kokarden and an enlisted man's helmet plate
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Helmet is in very nice condition. Appears to be for Guard Train Battalion.

Private purchase enlisted man helmets and the private purchase one-year volunteer helmets can get interesting with the use of officer style parts on their helmets, upgrades on liners, etcetera.

On this helmet I'm confused by the combination of parts, (namely the enlisted pattern front plate and guard star when combined with the other parts) as well as the back spine on the helmet which appears to be an enlisted style back spine.

Hopefully some of the other members will chime in on these combination details.

Best Regards,

Alan
 
Interesting helmet and I agree with Ron that other collectors are more knowledgable on the topic of private purchase helmets :D

Regards,

Edwin
 
I agree with Alan on the Garde Train identity. Here is (once again...) a helmet attributed to one-year volunteer Rabe, in Garde Train Abteilung. It is identical to an enlisted helmet (including leather liner), except for the cockades. The surprising feature of the helmet presented above is the presence of an officer spike and, principally, officer stars. I wonder what Joe makes of it...





 
Yes it has the 2 in front
Also thought I would post this info I got for your comments Here’s an article on One Year Volunteer Helmets from Der Reittmeister web site http://www.derrittmeister.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"One-Year-Volunteer" (OYV). A OYV enlisted in the army under a different program from ordinary recruits, whose terms were for two years. A OYV's term of enlistment was for one year, followed by service in the reserves. Following service in the reserves, he was often promoted to a Leutnant der Reserve. These young men came from upper middle class families and in some cases from nobility or even royalty.
In return for the government accepting their enlistment as an OYV, the COMPLETE cost of outfitting and maintaining the individual (including payment for quarters and provisions) was borne by his family. The German Army permitted a great deal of latitude in pickelhauben styles when it came to non-issued helmets. An OYV was allowed to wear very high-quality headdresses quite similar to those of officers. This was because he was expected to PAY for whatever he wore, hence the flexibility! He was allowed to have many of an officer's helmet's details, but not all of them.
For example, some of the primary differences between most officers' vs. enlisted men's/NCO's spiked helmets were in the area of wappens, officer's stars, kokarden, and spikes. As you study an OYV helmet, you will find them very similar to many officers' helmets from the same regiment. An OYV helmet is actually quite scarce. The numbers of OYV's was very limited in a regiment. As variants, they are quite desirable and collectible. They are, in my opinion, one of the best bargains (and one of the best kept secrets) on the market. They are a great value and, in terms of quality and collectability, a true cut above an enlisted man's or an NCO's piece.
 
Yes, "flexibility in what they could wear".... (In my opinion you'll find better explanations on the Kaiser's Bunker and Colonel J's websites)

Normally when you see these helmets that are paid for/purchased by the soldier, you see fancier front plates on them and not just a plain enlisted style guard front plate and the basic quality enlisted style guard star.

I have concerns about this helmet being fitted with an enlisted man's style back spine on this helmet. This would not be "typical" or "normal" for a OYV (one year volunteer) or an Eigetumsstück helmet (private purchase) that has officer style star retainers for the spike base, or the officer style spike, or the officer style pearl-ring around the base of the spike, or the officer style green and red lining under the front and back visors.

If the soldier paid for the helmet and paid for the fancier upgrades, I doubt he would have "run out of money" in order to pay for the fancier style front plate and a swollen style private purchase enlisted guard star, and a fancier officer grade back spine. Those are my points/questions.

Yak hair or buffalo hair plumes were normally worn on officer helmets, and white horse hair plumes were normally worn on an enlisted man's helmet for regiments that were allowed to wear them for parade.

Would you care to share with us and reveal what/who the source of your purchase was (old collection, dealer, auctionhouse, etcetera), and if there was any history with it?

Best Regards,

Alan
 
Interesting and helpful comments.
This helmet came out of a 35 year collection here in Canada. I have bought several items great from this collection in the past and certainly have no trust issues with the seller.
Also came with this transit case
 
Only three pictures? Where is rear spine
picture you saw?

This deserves a number of comments. I don't like it. It seems to me that somebody put original pieces together. Very difficult to see from the three pictures but I do not think it is for me.

Now for the real cautions. Be cautious of what you read on the site of the Rittmeister. He charges exorbitant prices and is generally very wrong in the descriptions. He gets the prices but I would not trust him carte blanche.
Following service in the reserves, he was often promoted to a Leutnant der Reserve. These young men came from upper middle class families and in some cases from nobility or even royalty.
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This is way too imprecise. On both your helmet and Bruno's the cockade is not officer.
The numbers for who got promoted etc. can be found in The Great War Dawning. The Riittmeister Needs to read that book. In there he could get an understanding of what these guys really were. There were so many different kinds and they were treated quite differently. There seems to be no consistency as to what different regiments allowed in private purchase helmets for these soldiers. As a result, the photographic evidence shows all sorts of different configurations from totally enlisted to totally officer and everything in between. There seems to have been different kinds of helmets for different uses. There were the helmets that could be purchased or rented from the regimental stores. These were heavily enlisted. There was a service helmet known as a Dienst helmet which was used every day and was regularly purchased privately. The primary function of these helmets was for comfort of wear. The more you paid the more lightweight and officer like was a helmet. There were many many variations on this theme. The third kind of helmet was more of a walking out item which was oriented towards looks. As the helmets were very expensive there were many of these guys who converted their helmets from Dienst to outwardly looking like an officer. this conversion service was offered by all the retailers for a price. Conversely, you could do the conversion yourself and while cheaper some of them are pretty much hatchet jobs.

An OYV helmet is are feally quite scarce.
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This is not true. Because many of them were privately purchased many have survived. And there was a thriving secondary market in these helmets.

The numbers of OYV's was very limited in a regiment.
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False. they were supernumeraries. there for the important part was how many applied to the Regiment. Train Battalions were particularly different With service commitments seldom lasting the entire year.

have to go.
 
Here's a photo of the enlisted man's pattern back spine for this helmet that was posted on the WAF forum.



Thanks for your excellent comments Joe. :thumb up: You're a true Scholar in studying these helmets and sharing your knowledge. =D> :bravo:

Maybe I'm wrong, but my gut instinct tells me this helmet was put together in its current configuration a long time after WW1 ended.

Best Regards,

Alan
 
More photos
with respect to the front plate – it seems to be a far higher quality private purchase one in fire gilt and is slightly larger vs. the regular stamped brass type worn by the regular OR
 
Here's what I wrote on WAF:

Nice looking pickelhaube, but I have a little problem to see what it is actually...
It's clearly a private purchase helmet, but I see Officer's perlring and stars on the haarbush mount, NCO kokarden and an enlisted man's helmet plate (also for NCO). The back spine also seems to be an EM or NCO model... or am I missing something?

I think this pickelhaube is put together before 1919... imo it's hard to believe that a German officer would wear an EM helmet plate and back spine on his pickelhaube at any time, also the NCO kokarden would be strange. These guys were to proud and had enough money to buy the right stuff...
I also find it hard to believe that an EM or NCO would be alowed to wear officer's stars...
Just my two cents of course...

Adler
 
with respect to the front plate – it seems to be a far higher quality private purchase one in fire gilt and is slightly larger vs. the regular stamped brass type worn by the regular OR
Click to expand...

A high quality fire guilded plate looks more like this...

Adler





 
OYVs could join the service with a class on 1 October each year. They volunteered to join the regiment of their choice but had to be accepted as an OYV. They were grouped together with the other one-year volunteers and their training was separate. Often their training consisted of only a few hours work per day. After three months, they could attend a special course, and after six months, if all went well, they could be promoted to supernumerary private first class (Gefreiter). After nine months, the best of the class could be promoted to supernumerary corporal (Unteroffizier). The reference to supernumeraries is merely a reinforcement of the understanding that these OYVs were extra or supernumeraries to the establishment. One-year volunteers were sometimes allowed to dine in the officer's mess, not with the officers of the regiment but in a separate room.
The OYV could become an officer aspirant in the reserves if his active company commander recommended him and he passed the requisite tests at the end of his year of service. If the one-year volunteer did not meet all these criteria, he could be passed into the reserves as a normal enlisted man or as an aspirant NCO. If all of the criteria were met, he would become an officer aspirant in the reserves and promoted to supernumerary Unteroffizier if he were not already at that rank. Of those completing their one-year, the company commander recommended every second recruit as a potential officer. One-third of those who entered military service went on to become reserve NCOs, and 13 percent were discharged without any promotion. A Bavarian army example in 1906 showed that 43 percent of the one-year volunteers left service with the recommendation of the company commander. Of that group only another 43 percent or a total of about 18 percent of the 1906 one-year volunteer intake, actually received a reserve officer commission.
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For reserve officers’ training, several handbooks have been published, explaining the content of the one-year of training. For infantry, these books were Bindewalds Anhalt für den Unterricht der Einjährig-Freiwilligen und Resereveoffiziers-Aspiranten der Infanteri, Verlag: Richard Schröder, (Berlin 1902) or Dilthey’s Militärischer Dienstunterricht für Einjährig Freiwillige bei der Ausbildung zu Reserveoffizier-Aspiranten sowie für Offiziere des Beurlaubtenstandes der deutschen Infanterie, E. S. Mittler & Sohn, (Berlin 1902). For the cavalry, read Frhr. v. Maltzahn’s, Handbuch für den Einjährig-Freiwilligen, sowie für den Reserve und Landwehr-Offizier der Kavallerie, E. S. Mittler & Sohn, (Berlin 1909). For the field artillery, consult Wernigk’s Handbuch für die Einjährig-Freiwilligen Offizier-Aspiranten und die Offiziere des Beurlaubtenstandes der Feldartillerie, E. S. Mittler & Sohn, (Berlin 1908) or its revised edition–Sommerbrodt’s Wernigks Handbuch für die Einjährig-Freiwilligen Offizier-Aspiranten und die Offiziere des Beurlaubtenstandes der Feldartillerie, E. S. Mittler & Sohn, (Berlin 1913). For the train, see Eiswaldt’s Handbuch für Einjährig-Freiwillige, Reserve-Offizieraspiranten und Offiziere des Beurlaubtenstandes des Trains, E. S. Mittler & Sohn, (Berlin 1901). Some interesting and very particular Bavarian aspects can be seen in Carl Theodor Müller, and Theodor v. Zwehl’s, Handbuch für den Einjährig-Freiwilligen, den Unteroffizier, Offiziersaspiranten und Offizier des Beurlaubtenstandes der kgl. Bayerischen Infanterie, R. Oldenbourg Verlag, (Munich 1886). General knowledge is given in Gen. Hörnig M. v. Süßmilch’s Katechismus für den Einjährig-Freiwilligen, Verlag: J.J. Weber, (Leipzig 1877). Interestingly, the last book refers to a pseudo-religious message in its title–obviously reserve officers had to learn this book by heart like a catechism.
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Money was an acute problem.

An officer relying on his military salary alone simply could not live in an appropriate style, because the salary was only one-fifth of that of his American counterpart. The uniform for an infantry lieutenant cost between 900 and 1,100 marks. The low salary caused shocking problems for most officers. While most guard and cavalry officers had to prove that they had a sufficient outside income prior to acceptance in the regiment, other officers tended to just do without. It was not unusual for an officer to be short of food or warmth, and they often failed to wear their coats in an effort to avoid wearing them out. Many regiments had a small fund to bail out officers who became short of funds. Most officers had to balance debt and the stigma attached to poor financial management. Aristocratic families usually had the money to grant pay supplements to their sons in officers’ careers. From commissioning, even infantry officers had to pay for two horses, uniforms, their side arms, etc. Becoming a cavalry officer was more expensive than it was for an infantry or artillery officer. The most expensive, when considering individual costs, certainly were the Garde Kürassier and the Gardes-du-Corps. Erich Ludendorff gives a very interesting account of his years as both an infantry lieutenant and captain—largely without any pay supplement by the family.

Through the rank of captain, army pay was hardly sufficient to support the officer, let alone adequate to support a family; therefore, promotion to the rank of major was usually called Majorsecke, which means that financially, “going around that corner,” would make his life much easier. Since most officers had to borrow money from their families, it was a common saying that after successfully passing the meager years, officers had “Schulden wie ein Stabsoffizier” (debts like a field-grade officer).

The Kaiser was personally aware of the burden of extra expenses required of officers. As he attempted to enlarge the officer corps in 1890, he gave an order that officers in infantry, foot artillery, and engineer regiments should be required to have no less than 45 marks per month of additional private income. He expected field artillery officers to have 70 marks per month, and those of the cavalry 150 marks per month. Bearing in mind that a newly commissioned lieutenant earned only 125 marks per month, there was no conceivable way to make ends meet on a salary alone.

Low pay with high status meant that marriage had to be a business deal in which the woman brought the “bacon” to the table. It was not unusual to use a marriage agency. A normal practice was for the bride’s father to assume the officer’s existing debts. The regimental commander had to approve the marriage to ensure the woman had at least an equal social background, enough money, and an unblemished record.
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