Unusual fibre/plastic Mk2 clone?

**Greg Pickersgill** · 03-16-2012, 11:23 AM

The attached picture was sent to me by someone Out There. It was bought off eBay and seems to have been tagged as a 'practice helmet', which makes little sense.

Described as being made of 'fibre plastic', whatever that means (maybe even bakelite, but it doesn't resemble any of the usual British WW2 commercial products) it apparently has the legend GOEDGOKI ARB P.U.4 either printed or impressed into the leather sweatband (the owner is unclear about which). The 'GOEDGOKI' bit sounds strangely familiar but I am presently unable to put 1+1 together successfully.

Any ideas? Not obviously a British commercial product, maybe a Third World clone? I dunno.

**battle gear** · 03-16-2012, 11:04 PM

probably a hard hat / safety helmet , or possibly a miner's helmet, I think it's a civillian hard hat of some type

**johnhmcgary** · 03-16-2012, 11:18 PM

My guess is a 40's Civil Defense helmet. John

**Eric Zentner** · 03-16-2012, 11:22 PM

Looks like a Zuckerman helmet for use by Fire Watchers and Civil Defence forces to me.

Eric

**Greg Pickersgill** · 03-16-2012, 11:42 PM

Hmm. Well, definately NOT a Zuckerman helmet, although there are characteristics in common. I had thought of it being an industrial helmet of some sort, but if so why copy the 'Tommy' shape so obviously. It isn;t necessarily a great protector except for falling objects (the original concept was for that and little more, remember).

So yes, hot runners so far are CD and/or industrial, but what I was hoping for (apart from a definate certain identification with references!) was something relating to this GOEDOKI marking. Which still seems familiar to me, and which accrues no hits whatsoever on Google. Or anywhere else come to that. Could it all be a dream?

**Eric Zentner** · 03-16-2012, 11:47 PM

I just did a side by side view and I agree they are differnt so I have no futher clue for ya sorry.

Eric

**Greg Pickersgill** · 03-20-2012, 10:42 AM

Might well have a positive identification on this. After a tip off from Canadian helmet collector Roger Lucy I followed up on the MSA SKULLGARD commercial helmet and a particular design from the 1940s-50s has remarkable similarity to this mystery object. I'm as happy as I can be at the moment (without having actually had the helmet in my hands) to say it probably likely more or less is a Skullgard. (Google will be your friend - 'MSA SKULLGARD'). Turns out that these were used in some circumstances by both the US Navy and Canadian Navy - and perhaps others. So, essentially a commercial industrial helmet, but one with a service record. Well, there's interesting.