The French Horde!

RoyA

RoyA

Member
In 1966, U.S. Historic Arms & Militaria dealer Norm Flayderman discovered a huge cache of pickelhauben in a remote corner of France.
He purchased all 500, brought them back to the U.S. and sold them for $34.50 each.
Here's a photo of Norm with the horde!

nos1jb7.jpg
 
Impressive! I have often heard similar stories but it is the first time I see a picture! A while ago my sister who works in the show business took me to a company in Paris that rents accessories for movies. A guy climbed up a scale and brought down several large cardboard boxes full of spike helmets. Exclusively basic prussian M15 models though (and I looked carefully for anything else...). He was selling those for about $ 120 a piece.
Bruno
 
Hey Roy,
Norm sold some of these for $19.50, as I have one that was purchased in 1968 for that price.
Best wishes
Gus
 
The majority of the helmets Norm Flayderman bought in that group were missing chinstraps. Norm had buckles & end pieces made and put reproduction straps together for the helmets. Norm was probably the first person to make reproduction chinstraps in quantity. He offered the straps in his catalogs long after all the helmets had been sold. Norm still had a quantity of the metal fittings listed in his catalog about 5 years ago.
His straps are easy to spot. The buckles are flat and very pointed on the the corners. The openings in the buckle are not quite even and the leather was glued together where it attaches to the center arm in the buckle. The leather, other than looking new, is a little too thin and somewhat elastic.

The above photograph is still in Norm's on line catalog in the nostalgia section.

Reservist1
 
Bruno: Here is another photo for you. War reparations helmets being unpacked on the steps of the Treasury Department in Wasington, DC.

warrephelmetsii2.jpg


Reservist1
 
Many thanks, Roy and R1. In fact I knew these "official" pictures, as well as the famous one on the back of Rankin's book, showing a heap of 20.000 german helmets in a government warehouse.
Roy, any hint as to where in France these 500 helmets were unearthed?
Bruno
 
Thanks for posting this new pic Roy. I had seen all of the others but had no clue that Norm had also found a "horde of helmets". Fantastic! Brian
 
Tony & Kaiser said:
Gustaf said:
Norm sold some of these for $19.50, as I have one that was purchased in 1968 for that price.
Click to expand...
Can we see it Gus?
Click to expand...
Hey Tony,
It is currently at the local museum, it you want, I will get some photos next time I am in, but it is a stink common M1915 with a reproduction chin strap and Kockarden, but it was one of the first helmets I acquired, as a Christmas present from my mother.
Best wihses
Gus
 
Okay, I just found this one from years ago and am giving it a bump because it's... interesting! I started collecting in 1978 or so and M15's were still around $50, not much more than Mr. Fladerman was selling them for and didn't change a lot until recently (or so it seems to me).
I do have a 'War Bond' helmet:

100_2644.jpg


Kinda fun to have the inscription like that. The award was to Mrs. A.S. Hudson of Frio County (Texas). I' have been able to find some records, but only interment in the local cemetery.

:D Ron
 
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