Unusual British Mk 4 - or what?

[Greg Pickersgill]

I was at the War&Peace show last week and made a point of checking any Mk3/4/5 shells I found for legible manufacturers stampings, as I'm helping out with a project related to that. The one I'm showing here genuinely astounded me. The stamp reads

ROCO (I think, very faint, this part) MA TY 4 1956

To say I was surprised would be an understatement. This is well outside the understood period of manufacture, usually believed to have ended in 1953, though people have claimed to see 1955-dated shells but we have no proof of that.

This particular helmet is an wonderment all round really, as despite being a Mk4 shell it is fitted with the nut&bolt MkII liner stamped REM II 1958.

The crown has the Mk4 dimple - no photograph of the exterior as I didn't want to strip the camo, but the interior depression is shown - and it may be that the LTD spike was never fitted as there is no real evidence of anything cut, ground, or hammered off.

I've not encountered anything like this before and am at a loss to explain it. I bought it from a remarkably cheerful and chatty pair of Irishmen - might an Irish Army connection have any significance? Or it could be just a typo at the stamping end - much less exciting though completely plausible, though in that case would not there be more of these found? Information please!

[James C]

very interesting example Greg ,the date most certainly looks to be 1956 ,you had good eye's to spot that at the time ,im really liking the scrim work done to the shell exterior ,reading between the line's it sounds like the same lads i picked up a turtle riot helmet off ,shame we never met up there , maybe next year

[Greg Pickersgill]

Well, its 1956 definately, I could see that even without my USB microscope! We know that the Armour helmets continued to be produced in small quantities into the late 50s, but until Mr Cotton comes down from the mountain with New News we believe that 1953 was the last date for the turtle shells. So what's going on here then?

So far no ideas forthcoming, apart from one person who implies that Mk4 shells with M2 liners are not as uncommon as I thought they are - that is, I've never seen one ever, even in pictures.

We might have stood next to each other - we seem to have looked at all the same stalls anyway. If you saw a character with a faded red (virtually pink now) shirt and grey hair and glasses with a big shoulder-bag, looking inside all the helmets, that was me.

[James C]

Yes Greg we most likely did well it sounds like you found a very interesting example indeed ,ill stay tuned for any further developments