Toys

O

ottodog8

Active member
Some of you may have seen this photo of me taken when i was 10 or 11 years old, circa 1966 or 67. There was a stash of WW1 souvenirs at my grandparents house, from various family members. Helmets, gas masks, bayonets, etc. There were no childrens' toys at the house, so those were what I played with. No, I didn't wreck them, even then I treated them with respect and even awe. Although I did run around in the woods wearing an M16 steel helmet and carrying a butcher bayonet. Lots of books about WW1 too, it was a big deal to the old folks. When they passed on, the stuff was scattered to the four winds. None came my way, I was too low on the totem pole. Over the years, I tracked some of it down and acquired it. Recently, I came home and found a box on my doorstep left by a kindly relative, and these were in it. I know, not much to look at, but what a hoot to reconnect with my childhood toys after not having seen them for 35 years! Unfortunately, they sat neglected in a cellar for most of those years.
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The helmet I'm wearing is missing, but the kugelhelm I'm holding is the one in the photo. Not like the SOS, but these have great meaning to me.
Steve
 
Wow...some concrete childhood memories! I wish I had my original Roy Rogers 2 gun holster set that I played with in the 50's. Were the wappen always missing from these pieces?? If so any explanation as to why? Of note also..the tschapka liner has a typical round fingered infantry M15 (not dyed) liner. A great family history.
 
Great stuff :) , so your grandparents lived in the states right?
Thanks for sharing.
 
Thanks for the comments. My grandparents lived in rural New England - very rural in those days, now it's a pretty ritzy place. I'm what's now known as a "swamp yankee", one of the few holdouts adhering to the traditional New England values. My town went from a place that had 2 registered Democrats in 1964 to a place Obama comes to vacation at. Oh well.
The helmets in the stash were in varying states of condition, the helmets shown were always missing the wappens. Nobody seemed to know what happened to them. There were some nicer helmets though, these were obviously War Bond helmets:
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The Kurassier is a Lachmann
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Here are a couple of the steel helmets:
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I was able to obtain these nicer helmets a couple of years ago, they had been stored in a dry attic rather than a musty basement. Pretty interesting toys for a kid. I was very fortunate to have them to play with and study. Well maybe not so lucky, I was corrupted for life.
Steve

PS
If anyone has a spare wappen that would fit the tin uhlan helmet I would love to at least make it complete. I have enough wappens and cockades for the others.. never enough chinstraps though, I'll have to live with repros.
 
Wow more cool stuff, nice to have relatives who obviously were WW1 souvenir hunters while over seas. I would clean the rust off of everything in order to make sure it goes no further....sorry its the restorer in me, can't help it. Again that tin tschapka with the infantry style liner is proof positive that they did do this mid war. Excellent and thank you for sharing these items with us.
 
Very cool! I too like the photo. It almost looks like a small tanker style jacket on you.

Anyway, I'm with Brian, clean the rust off of the Pickelhaube. There are some nice shells there and they could clean up nicely. If the Kuerassier helmet was in the collection, then I'd guess that its front plate may have come off of the infantry style Pickelhaube. Worth a try to see if it fits! :)

:D Ron
 
Very nice toys indeed! :bravo:

I agree with Brian and Ron; you should carefully clean than Kurassier shell (without damaging the grey trimmings & spike). As for the (brass M1895 line) eagle; it isn't original to it so maybe it is your missing eagle...

Worst case, you keep the eagle and sell the shell to me and I'll clean it and try to find the correct cavalry type M15 (grey steel) eagle or otherwise settle with an M15 line eagle... :)
 
Hello Ottodog8, I believe I might have what you are looking for (if you are still in need of it). I have a wappen that might match your tin tschapka. It has the correct feather pattern and is made of brass.

Please see the for sale section for pictures.

It matches the one in this previous discussion about tin tschapkas:

http://www.pickelhaubes.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=99&start=15" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If you are interested please PM me. Thanks

Adam
 
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