Article about: In the past few weeks I have added a few more Adrian helmets to my collection, the first one is an untouched Japy Model 1915 badged to the artillery. Japy was the first company to produce th
In the past few weeks I have added a few more Adrian helmets to my collection, the first one is an untouched Japy Model 1915 badged to the artillery. Japy was the first company to produce the Adrian, and shortly after receiving an order for 1,600,000 the helmets started to be issued to troops by September 1915. Unable to cope with the size of the order, Japy farmed out to other contractors to meet the demand. Apart for very slight changes to the production methods of the individual companies the actual construction of the helmet remained the same throughout the war. The Japy helmet is often referred to as the 'first pattern' helmet, but in truth there was no first pattern. The only real change to the helmet was the type of liner, the first pattern liner being made from a single piece of leather, and the second pattern which was constructed from a ring of leather with the individual tongues sewn in place. The example illustrated below shows the earlier horizon blue showing through the later darker colour, and although the first pattern liner is quite dry, it is still fairly supple. As is usually the case, the chinstrap is missing... they rarely survive. Inside the comb of the helmet are bits of dead grass.
The second helmet was made by the Reflex company and is badged to the infantry. Differences between this and the Japy model are only slight. The main difference being to the fixing of the front and rear peak joint, in this case the helmet join is riveted, the shape of the comb is also different. The paint is the original shade of light horizon blue with the badge being a slightly different shade. On the earliest helmets the badge was supplied to the helmet manufacturer in an unpainted state, it was then attached and the whole helmet was then sprayed. In an effort to speed up production the badges were then supplied pre-painted on both sides and then attached to the already painted helmet shell. This could result in different shades of blue between helmet and badge. This helmet still has it's original chinstrap - although the first pattern liner is a bit fragile. Glued to the underside of the liner was a card with the owners name on...
The final helmet is one I received in a rather battered state, there was no liner, plenty of rust, and the Colonial badge has had the anchor crudely removed from underneath. The paint on the helmet was a very light shade of horizon blue which rubbed away a bit like chalk. Not something I would recommend anyone to do, but the badge intrigued me - so i removed it for further inspection. From what I could see, the alteration had been made many years ago and the paint to badge and helmet are a perfect match. A light rubbing with fine wire wool and beeswax removed much of the rust and the powdery paint to reveal the original paint underneath. I have installed a reproduction liner and spacers purely for cosmetic reasons and no attempt has been made to age it. The helmet itself is the rarer model made by Delmas with the second pattern comb attached. The last picture is how the helmet looked. Click on pictures to enlarge.
All of those are great examples of the adrian, and you did a great job restoring that last one too. Wish these and French WW1 items in general were more common in my area, they had the most interesting helmet and uniform design of the war in my opinion.
I have a soft spot for the Adrian... the world's first proper combat helmet. Not as easy to make as the stamped out British and German helmets, and difficult to date because they remained virtually unchanged throughout the war. There are few clues to their age, and none of the clues can give an accurate date - unlike for example the German WW2 helmets. The very earliest Adrian's can be identified through the way the helmet shell and the badge is painted, but this entails the somewhat risky task of removing the badge to check behind. If there is no paint where the badge was placed, and there is no paint on the back of the badge, then it is a very early helmet. If the helmet is fitted with the first pattern liner it was produced up to a few months after the introduction of the second pattern liner in September 1916. Japy never changed their construction methods, and continued to weld the join between front and rear peaks throughout the war with no rivets used. So do not take the lack of rivets as the sign of an early helmet.
to add on on the paint
The first paint was shiny, that why they used cover hemets and often repainted them. The initial color should be seen undersneath.
second colour patern was still a clear blue but not shiny anymore du to a change in production
Later one helmets were dark blue
Other tip for the liner, the woolen part was done with re uesed furnitures, mainly old uniforms.
If the wool is dark blue or red, this means theysed the 1914's uniforms so it may be an early production.
Steve, here's how your M.15 for the artillery looked like when it came out of Japy's factory : in the very light blue and (way too) shiny early paint. No wonder why helmets that were issued that way got a quick overpaint.
Else, I'm totally in love with your helmet by Reflex.
Thanks for all the precisions you provided about the M.15 Adrian helmet, as many (if not most) of them are not well known, even in its country of origin.
Chris
PS : about removing the badges in order to get a tiny bit more infos. Do NOT do that, nope, never, don't even think about it. Because :
- a badge installed since day one has to remain that way ;
- you have more than 3.5 chances out of 4 to break one of the badge's prongs (if not both) ;
- given the risk involved and the destruction of the helmet's "untouched" condition, who cares about knowing whether it was painted with or without its badge i.e was made in 1915 or 1916 onwards...
Mes 2 centimes.
Last edited by Das Edelweiss; 11-21-2022 at 10:57 PM.
I agree with you Steve. I just wanted to add a top layer over that, to make things clear and to be sure to ban this idea from collector's minds for good, beginners in particular (but not only).
Because I already saw that way too often. Recently, one of my best friends and collector (not a newbie by any means) took a look at one of his old M.15s and was bothered by the difference in shade between the artillery badge and the shell ; so he decided to carefully remove the badge, thinking it wasn't the right one. He discovered two things :
1) a nice outline of the artillery badge in the paint of the shell : the badge was there since day one ;
2) one of the badge's prongs has broken.
I just went into one of my boxes to pull out this Chasseurs badge. Adrians helmets for Chasseurs do not come by very often : as a former Chasseur myself, I can tell that it took me quite a while before being able to add one to my collection. The helmet that wore this very badge was the property of a friend of mine, and here's how it ended for the very same reasons as above. I was offered this poor badge, and I've been keeping it as a reminder of what not to do... for the last 40 years.
Chris
Last edited by Das Edelweiss; 11-21-2022 at 11:04 PM.
Model 1915 Adrian helmets
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