stahlhelm 16

[Tlb]

hello a pretty early olive color

 

[Tlb]

 

[2nd.Leibhusar]

hello a pretty early olive color
View attachment 72664

Beautiful early color...

 

[Amybellars]

Very nice

 

[Grabenmaxx]

That's a very beautiful green M16!
I love your entire cabinet by the way. Great M16's and very nice French adrians

 

[Bobted]

Yes fabulous display of top quality helmets. Could we see more photos of the camo on the right above the flask. Rob

 

[Tlb]

 

[Bobted]

I love that photo, great helmet lovely pattern,I have one similar. Rob

 

[Bobted]

pics

 

[Bobted]

Actually you have the circles like in the photo. Mines a bit more Amoeba. Rob

 

[Stahlhelm]

Lovely early production model E.T. The paint texture on these early Thale helmets out of the factory was a matte eggshell that often quickly became shiny from wear and weathering. It was the same paint as seen on the E.T. square dip helmets that preceded these.

Is there a heat batch number stamp visible inside the dome?

 

[Tlb]

no number inside the dome..

 

[Tlb]

Oui, désolé, pour le M16 vert
" p i 88 "

 

[Tlb]

Do the two letters and the number mean anything to you?

 

[Stahlhelm]

It would be interesting to see a clear picture of the letter/number combination. Often rust pitting or other damage over time has obscured these dome stamps.

 

[Tlb]

of course

 

[Stahlhelm]

It's most likely R 138. The "R" prefix is code for the steel mill Stahlwerk Röchling (Volklingen) and the number is the ingot number. Röchling was the sole steel mill used for helmet production at first, and all early production M16 helmets I have encountered have the R prefix codes.

This letter/number combination was purely for quality control purposes during manufacturing. A small number of helmet shells from each lot went through ballistics testing during production, and if the steel from that particular lot proved too brittle or too soft, all helmets with this code were removed from production and scrapped.

E.T. 66:


N.J. 62:


K&M 68:

 

[Tlb]

Okay, great, thanks!! I'll check if my Square Dip has that letter...

 

[Tlb]

number 1691 not P

 

[Tlb]

and m17
BW 297