In case you want to restore the insignia, it appears that a visor cap star will do. I am not sure whether the slight difference between 14mm and 13.6 mm is only the result of rounding up, but I would guess so.
Many thanks all, I appreciate the info.
I am on the lookout for an original star!
Finally, here is the money shot of the sun helmet type 98, worn during WW2 taken from the army uniform spec book.
I have never done any in depth research on sun helmets yet, but you can see that the brim design is quite different between the 1930 drawing and the 1941 drawing. And the official designation of Type 98 as seen below indicates there was a major change in 1938 as well. I assume this was when they introduced the new trimmed-back brim. So though your's still has the side vents, it would be the first model of the Type 98, instead of the earlier Type 5.
Note in the spec drawing the front/back orientation, which you can tell by the markings. When you have the arsenal stamp to your right, the side facing you is the front. Sticking the star on the wrong side would be a disaster.
Fascinating info & original plans/drawings Nick!
I really appreciate your time on this.
The very best regards!
Having done some exploratory research on the Army pith helmet to reply to questions here, I realized that this can be a nice companion story to the Helmet Evolution story pinned above. It is also another subject that no author seems to have done proper justice to before, so no one probably knows that what the IJA studied as a springboard for its pith helmet program were German pith helmets captured by Japan, not any British model.
Now, I have the full history to write another Evolution story, but as always, not being a collector I don't have examples to fully illustrate this story except original line drawings, and would therefore appreciate the participation of other collectors that have early examples with metal stars and vents. I have a nice example of the last model, which I show below, so no photos of those are required.
I need photos like the ones below plus a closeup of the arsenal marking. Please upload what you have here, so I can use your photos when I finish writing the story.
Hi Nick,
Many thanks for your help.
Regards
Last edited by christek; 12-27-2016 at 01:37 AM.
Nick, I'll photograph my army pith helmets tomorrow
Take your time with the photos, Jareth. I got all the necessary documents out of the archives, but I still have to read them all and then write the story, so it will be a week at least till the story needs to be illustrated.
When I did some searching here for photos, I noticed an earlier thread in which there was some discussion whether these were "helmets" or "hats". The IJA did finally settle on using the word hat, but they also had to grope for words at first, as they initially actually called this type of headgear a "helmet hat".
This one comes with a hat. "Only" $80
-Guy
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