Article about: I came across a rather interesting Japanese helmet on eBay last week. There were only four photographs supplied, just the one frontal shot - and then three others of the interior. I wasn't a
I came across a rather interesting Japanese helmet on eBay last week. There were only four photographs supplied, just the one frontal shot - and then three others of the interior. I wasn't absolutely certain what type of helmet it was, but when I enlarged the photographs I spotted the chinstrap bails - and that was enough to convince me it it was a Type 90. I made the purchase and it arrived yesterday.
Although likely to be post-war police use, I believe the shell to be a wartime production. It has the lozenge stamp for Kobe Steel to the rear. The liner is in good condition and much different from the one's I have seen in other non-military helmets, although it does have the pockets for the padding as used on the wartime liners. The three liner split-pins are brass with the heads not as flat as the ones used on the wartime IJA helmet. I thought - probably wrongly - that the Police helmets were a light shade of blue, but this seems more of a blue green.
All in all it is in excellent condition, and it didn't cost that much either. If anyone could help with a translation of the Kanji I would be extremely grateful.
The yellow characters say Aichi, Asuke Police Station. Asuke town is now part of Toyota City since 2005.
Yes, this is a postwar reuse of the Type 90 helmet by the police. These WW2 helmets continued to be used well into the 1990s by the police. Up until the 90s, police surplus helmets were sold off intact like yours, but then they switched to crushing them into scrapped steel, before release.
Postwar specs were not uniform throughout, but differed almost by precinct. Some were painted in various shades of blue, others grey and even some were left in wartime brown.
The police emblem could be a metal badge or painted on in white or yellow in varying sizes.
In Japan, civilians don't own guns in general, so helmets are rarely needed on duty by normal police officers and just hung on the wall of a police box, but riot police of the 60s and 70s were often seen wearing the type 90.
Japanese Type 90 helmet
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