I love to see these transformations. Really remarkable!
I've got to put a plug in here for Cameron Laughlin, who did a beautiful job with my Hessian IR115 and the American pickelhaube that I recently posted. He's a real scholar of 19th century leather craftmanship and militaria in general. Larry (Larmo) referred him to me.
If you look at his website you'll see an nice before and after clip of another American pickelhaube that he restored. I had this in mind when I bought my pickelhaube at the SOS. I knew there was somebody out there who fix it and do it correctly.