MK1* Australian 8th Battalion

**wizardman** · 08-08-2018, 11:19 AM

Ive waited my whole life to get a Battalion Marked Aussie lid..i recently found this one with an WW1Australian 8th Battalion patch double decal as it should be, ive only ever seen 4 or 5 of these in my life

**Jerry B** · 08-08-2018, 01:15 PM

Drool, wow, excellent

**tinlid** · 08-08-2018, 06:41 PM

Lovely, and rare helmet.

**SMP** · 08-08-2018, 10:54 PM

Great to see such a rare helmet. Congratulations !

Is the leather chinstrap arrangement typical of all Australian MKI*s ?

**Ethan** · 08-09-2018, 12:42 AM

Very nice rare helmet, congratulations on the excellent find!

**wizardman** · 08-09-2018, 01:14 AM

by SMP

Great to see such a rare helmet. Congratulations !

Is the leather chinstrap arrangement typical of all Australian MKI*s ?

I dont know mate, ive never seen one

**wizardman** · 08-10-2018, 05:20 AM

The problem with Australian MK1* is i cant actually find one. Im not even sure if we had a proper MK1*. The Australian War Memorial has a generic blog about MK1* having the elastic chinstrap, but its just about MK1*s and not Australian ones. I cant actually find in any records that we used them, and without a unit marking or name its impossible to tell them apart from British ones. All i can say is ive never actually seen an attributed Australian MK1* till this one. Whether this one someone has just wacked a MK2 liner into it at some stage i dont know, the liner is a Vero 39, that too is strange for an Aussie Helmet, all the Australian made MK3 Helmets have Australian liners to my knowledge. So this may be the one Helmet that was spared the repaint and can be attributed as a real Australian MK1* Helmet, leaving the original chinstrap but changing the liner, sounds like a very plausible explanation in that phoney war period.

**reneblacky** · 08-10-2018, 07:30 AM

Lovely helmet, dumb question from me! it's still a British made shell yes? Got some more detailed photos?

**Ethan** · 08-11-2018, 08:18 PM

by reneblacky

Lovely helmet, dumb question from me! it's still a British made shell yes? Got some more detailed photos?

It is a British made shell, you can tell its British made because the rivets are split (bottom picture) instead of round, all though, this does not apply to British made helmets during WW2, as they had round rivets.

**Jerry B** · 08-11-2018, 09:37 PM

Is the chinstrap the remains of the original WWI, it looks as if it probably is, and I know some of the early MKI*'s used them and the original lugs and only later did these parts get changed.