Finnish used M17
This helmet is from a collection of Finnish army helmets.
From what I've found out so far is that it's an Austrian made 'M17' helmet since the chin strap is attached to the helmet and the helmet liner ring is made of metal - please correct me if I'm wrong.
Is this liner and chin strap typical of those made by the Finns? Is the paint colour typical of those used by the Finns? The shell is stamped W64 -Is the "W" the maker?
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Austro-Hungarian m/17 helmet, yes.
But does the helmet have additional manufacturer stamp inside middle of helmet dome? Then it would confirm it to be Austria-Hungary made.
Austria-Hungary purchased about 416,000 German helmets from November 1916 until the end of the war and also began its own licensed production starting in May 1917.
I think your helmet could be german made, but I'm not sure about this. More other opinnions please.
Paint. I think i can see original Austria-Hungary olive-green under that green color.
Finnish pre-war green and German m/17 factory field-green (=feldgrau) color are sometimes hard to distinguish from the other.
Chinstrap carrying loops are Austria-Hungary ww1 standard. And actual chinstrap is made of whatever.
Cushion pads are wierd, looks like breadbag canvas. Not common.
Liner band. Does it have holes in it? If not, then it isn't austrian-hungary made.
Looks like solid thick metal band, ww1 bands are generally very thin. I suspect it is Finnish made replacement repair band. I would say very rare repair variant. Done before 1945.
They are usually m/16 copy full leather liners in ww1 german refurbished Finnish helmets.
I finally managed to check the helmet again and there is a stamp on the dome which reads "S 4 2 N". I assume that confirms it was one of the Austria-Hungary made helmets.
I forgot about the metal liner band but took this photo. I'm not sure if that's enough to say if it's an early liner or Finnish made replacement:
Is the photo above from the same helmet? The liner pad above appears to be single stitched and leather as opposed to the pads in your initial photos which look like linen and have two rows of stitching?
Regarding the manufacturers stamp, looks like W64 but could be AW64 for A. Westen Cilli of Celie, Slovenia. I have not seen an example of an AW stamp to compare with so can’t confirm but looks a bit like a faint A combined with a W. AW made M17 Austrian-Hungarian helmets in size 64 only. In WW1 the only manufacturer with a W code was Hermann Weissenburger & Co., Stuttgart-Canstatt who made German helmets in size 66 only.
Can’t help with the rolling mill code but could be an unknown mill.
Ahhh! You’re correct, I’ve mixed it up with the other M18. Well done for spotting that. Apologies for the mix up. These last two photos belong to the other helmet in my article “Finnish used M16/18”. I’ll update here when I manage to get photos of the correct helmet. Sorry!
A late update to correct my error of including two wrong photos. These next three photos are of the same helmet as originally posted. The metal helmet band does not have holes so perhaps that's a Finnish made variant as Verikauha previously suggested.
I could not see any stamp on the inside dome, could it have been over-painted?
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