MINT M16 WW1 SI66 CAMO HELMET (Restored)

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BACKGROUND: The first "modern" steel helmets were introduced by the French army in early 1915 and were shortly followed by the British army later that year. With plans on the drawing board, experimental helmets in the field, ("Gaede" helmet), and some captured French and British helmets the German army began tests for their own steel helmet at the Kummersdorf Proving Grounds in November, and in the field in December 1915. An acceptable pattern was developed and approved and production began at Eisen-und Hüttenwerke, AG Thale/Harz, in the spring of 1916. These first modern M16 helmets evolved into the M18 helmets by the end of WWI. The M16 and M18 helmets remained in usage through-out the Weimar Reichswehr era and on into the early years of the Third Reich until the development of the smaller, lighter M35 style helmet in June 1935.

Of Note: In July 1918 Chief of the General Staff of the Field Army, Erich Ludendorff issued a directive which clearly laid out the camouflage colors and pattern that was to be applied to all helmets in the field. The directive also included the amounts of paint that 1,000 helmets would require as five kilograms, (11Lbs), each of, green, ochre yellow and rust brown, and two kilograms, (4.4 Lbs), of black paint. This paint was to be hand applied by brush by the solider himself in the field with directives given so that each color was separated by a finger's width of black border paint to create the classic stain glass style camouflage pattern.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION:  It's hard to believe for a helmet over 100+ years old now but sometimes (as in this case) one can find an original M16 SI66 shell that is completely rust free, dent free, crack free etc. and so a great candidate for a full overhaul/restoration. This helmet was first stripped down to bare metal which greatly enhanced the SI66 (Eisenhuette Silesia, Paruschowitz Oberschlesien) stamping as well as the heat lot number on the inside dome which clearly reads BI 307. I then repainted it in textbook WW1 factory dark smooth pea green enamel paint. This was then followed up by a second layer of dark yellow ochre as a base paint and then geometric sections of forest green and red brick brown separated by a finger's width of flat black paint. The inside rim was stamped with a 66 which was common at the time and the chinstrap is a high end Czech sourced reproduction worthy of this helmet.

The helmet was then professionally hand aged to create a natural wear pattern throughout consistent with what a US Doughboy would have grabbed off of the capture pile before his eventual return home in late 1918.

Most WW1 helmets are rusty junk buckets but not mine as I hand select them preferring to go for the rarer larger sizes such as this 66 which is not a common size for the times but fits most men's heads of today!

$450 SOLD - B. HOLBROOK

Please call, text or email me if interested.
Tel/Text: 1-438-502-5052
Email Us: helmetsofwar@gmail.com

GERMAN HELMET FACTORY PRODUCTION CODES
(Every original German helmet produced from 1916 to 1918 had two factory stampings punched into the side and rear or both in the rear.  The alpha numeric number refers to the factory location and the inside metric circumference in centimeters.  The rear lot number refers to the production run and was used as a quality control measure. The font styles used at each factory were slightly different but highly consistent throughout the war and so fakes or reproductions will either not have these numbers at all or they will use the wrong font style or letter spacing and so are easily identified as post war made.)