You never forget the first love.

[Zebedeus]

Just like in the Disney saga, Scrooge McDuck keeps his first penny as a lucky charm, I too continue to keep the pickelhaubes in my collection that I purchased in the early 1980s.
And you, my friends, have you kept your first treasures?
My first pickelhaube was this Prussian M95 marked I.R.74 - 2B and dated 1899.

 

[Zebedeus]

After my first purchase, driven by a strange and uncontrollable feeling, it didn't take long to purchase my second pickelhaube.
I hadn't yet realized I had contracted the incurable disease called "haubevirus" by specialists.
And this was my second purchase.
A late-model non-commissioned officer from the Kingdom of Saxony.

 

[Zebedeus]

Now completely addicted to my new passion, with the only help of 2th volume by Jean Larcade's book Casque a Pointe (a friend had made me black-and-white photocopies of his), I managed to purchase my first officer's helmet: an artillery officer's helmet from the reserve of the Kingdom of Württemberg.
The passion had completely taken over me, and my only limit was the modest financial resources of a young man in his twenties.
This was my beginning....

 

[Sandmann]

These are all beautiful helmets. You had a good eye, right from the start

 

[John Josef]

Congratulations all three are timeless good choices.

 

[911car]

What a great intuition you had as a beginner!
My first one was a miserable Prussian M15 found a long time earlier by my uncle - a police officer - capping a scarecrow somewhere on a field in Western France. You can imagine the condition...
I was about 12 years old. I traded it with my cousin for a rusted P08.
It is only much, much later that I started collecting for good.

 

[Zebedeus]

What a great intuition you had as a beginner!
My first one was a miserable Prussian M15 found a long time earlier by my uncle - a police officer - capping a scarecrow somewhere on a field in Western France. You can imagine the condition...
I was about 12 years old. I traded it with my cousin for a rusted P08.
It is only much, much later that I started collecting for good.

Dear Bruno, I really don't know if it was intuition. I think it was luck that allowed me to buy beautiful objects in good condition. After all, since I was young, I've always cultivated a passion for beauty and quality in things in general.
If something doesn't meet my minimum standards of quality and completeness, I'm not interested at all.

 

[CLOVIS 57]

Well, that's a great start. Bravo!