michiel
Well-known member
My latest find is a "rare beast" as it was called by another forum member in earlier post.
It is the pickelhaube of a reserve officer of the second battalion of the (96 th regiment) Reuss
the wappen was only attributed to one battalion thus very scarce,
it is surprising that this helmet was for sale in France, der Rittmeister has two, and Weitze has three...
(mathematically seems to be impossible for such a scarce helmet..., so I ordered it, had a good look, compared it to photo's on the web, and a lot of my textbooks).
I went through al my textbooks and comparing the photo's with my latest find seems to show my wappen is genuine.
the bird (Crane) is very different between EM and Officer , and in the Militaria verlag book on Infantry it's described with a reference that from the officer wappen different genuine versions exist at the level of the crane.
The wappen in my hands corresponds to most photo's of officer helmets I can find.
It is a helmet in good, though not perfect condition, the liner suffered, and one schuppenkette once broke and misses a scale thus it's become to short to close. The silver of the wappen is quite oxidized, thus doesn't shine.
The wappen (without banner being reserve officer) and the reserve cross (with Feurst) have a beautiful patina
The backside of the wappen looks OK I think (no modern soldering), the nuts that fit to the shell are the square ones, as does the Ghost on the helmet.
The whole helmet seems to be "dans son jus" as they say in France, It shows its age and the fact it has been used. Al parts seem to belong together , seems is has never been taken apart.
For that reason I'm hesitating to replace the schuppenkette for an intact one.
It is the pickelhaube of a reserve officer of the second battalion of the (96 th regiment) Reuss
the wappen was only attributed to one battalion thus very scarce,
it is surprising that this helmet was for sale in France, der Rittmeister has two, and Weitze has three...
(mathematically seems to be impossible for such a scarce helmet..., so I ordered it, had a good look, compared it to photo's on the web, and a lot of my textbooks).
I went through al my textbooks and comparing the photo's with my latest find seems to show my wappen is genuine.
the bird (Crane) is very different between EM and Officer , and in the Militaria verlag book on Infantry it's described with a reference that from the officer wappen different genuine versions exist at the level of the crane.
The wappen in my hands corresponds to most photo's of officer helmets I can find.
It is a helmet in good, though not perfect condition, the liner suffered, and one schuppenkette once broke and misses a scale thus it's become to short to close. The silver of the wappen is quite oxidized, thus doesn't shine.
The wappen (without banner being reserve officer) and the reserve cross (with Feurst) have a beautiful patina
The backside of the wappen looks OK I think (no modern soldering), the nuts that fit to the shell are the square ones, as does the Ghost on the helmet.
The whole helmet seems to be "dans son jus" as they say in France, It shows its age and the fact it has been used. Al parts seem to belong together , seems is has never been taken apart.
For that reason I'm hesitating to replace the schuppenkette for an intact one.
