mkII (&mkI or earlier) Helmets Steel, British & Commonwealth, show yours
Article about: To kick this of, my favorite mkII. Liner is Teddy Toy company and the shell is Joseph Sankey & Sons and both are dated 1940. The hand painted serial number matches one from the block of
I have been after an example of one of these Postwar reworked Canadian Mk II's for some time and they very seldom come up in the marketplace what makes it unusual is that it has been painted in a teller green over a bare metal finish it has been suggested that they were prepared for service in Korea and were never sent abroad.
last one from me, a favourite, 1939 dated shell, not sure the maker, the liner is BH&CO but cant make out the date, chinstrap lugs are 39 dated also, what I like about this one is the engineer has made a a few mods, he fixed the problem with the screw coming undone by peening over an old nail or something (inside and out) and using an old watch? cog inside as a washer. He also added inside the dome some foil, like what you would see in solar helmets, some point he also had to re-attach the chinstrap springs and stitch back up the cover
HI Chaps
I felt a bit like the chaps out of american pickers to day I was invited to my friends barn here in the UK to look at some bits that had been there since my friend could remember he is in his 80's ( see the WWI Imperial German thread for the M16 helmet . ) this example as with the other 4 where under neath the table at the back here Is the BMB MKI RAW EDGE WITH ITS 1940 DATED BMB LINER hope you enjoy looking at it steve
If I did not know better Jerry I would say you are running a bit of a shell game there...
1942 dated GSW flashed to the Black Watch
1941 dated G.S.W. flashed with a letter P ( Auxiliary Police )
1941 dated C.L./C. steel lot batch 29
Undated and Unstamped Canadian Mk II flashed to the A.R.P. it is sporting a 1942 dated VMC liner in a size of 6 1/2 and has the owners name written in the back on the interior of the helmet body near the rim ( Bob McCubbin )I have a few Mk II's flashed to the ARP in my collection but these particular helmet bodies are a bit of a mystery and are rather interesting as there is no manufacture mark date and or a steel batch code stamped to the interior of the shell all these are constructed of non magnetic Hadfield manganese steel which denotes them as combat grade shells from the way the rim ends are joined on the shell in comparison to the C.L./C and or the AG/C shells and from the later war olive khaki paint there construction can date no earlier than mid 1942 IMO these shells were produced by General Steel Wares (G.S.W.)
These helmet bodies are suspected of being rejects and unfit for use as a combat grade shell and were very probably sold to The Department Of Pensions and Health to be used by the ARP services.
1941 dated G.S.W. steel lot batch Z
Irish Defence Insignia this insignia was used between 1941 and 1955 post war examples tend to have a larger painted flash...
Curragh and or Eastern Command it is very hard to differentiate the two as there is only a slight colour difference in the background colour of the spade shaped flash
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