Product Information

Germany produced three patterns of helmet for its Turkish allies during the first world war. The standard issue stahlhelm was unsuitable by virtue of its viser.Turkish troops performed regular daily prayer rituals witch involved kneeling on the ground and kissing the earth.The requirement was therefore for a redesigned helmet with the front visor either removed or drastically remodelled sutch that troops could perform this ritual even in combat theatres whilst being protected.The most famous and widely seen of these patterns was the visorless M16 with the front scalloped away over the eyebrows.About 5,000 of these were made thogh its likely that none were ever sent toTurkey and indeed the only photographic evidence of them in use is from the Freikorps period in Germany.The two other patterns,both of which saw service with Turkish troops are of the Full visor variety and are far rarer than the German visorless model.on both patterns of full visor helmet the front visor flare commences considerably futher up the waist of the helmet.When compared to a standard stahlhelm the diference is very striking.One pattern has an M18 style liner with no external M98 chinstrap hook rivet heads and crimped/rolled bottom edge in the Stahlhelm style.The other pattern of which this helmet is an example has the M98 hook rivet heads showing and a bottom edge which is devoid of crimping/rolling and has been razored off.This is one of the raest German helmets ever produced.It would be impossible to hammer out or modify a regular Stahlhelm to obtain this shape as there just isnt enough raw material on the regular Stahlhelms in this frontal visor area.This helmet would originally have been fitted with either the M16 or M17 liner The M98 hook posts and ventilator bolts with their slightly chamfered extremities on this helmet are the standard fittings as seen on the regular Stahlhelms.There is no liner or strap and very little remains of the original finish although the metal is in extremely good order with only superficial rust dusting .There are no dents,dings or bashes,the shape of the helmet is perfect throughout.In 2008 this helmet was taken to the exhibits curator at the Imperial War Museum for comparison to the Turkish helmet in their own collection .Their helmet was acquired in the 1920′s and on inspection was found to be identical to this one in all forms right down to the way in which the rolled lower edge had been removed.For collecters of rare first World War German helmets this piece must represent a pretty much unique opportunity to own a pattern of which only a handful of known survivers exist around the World.It would probably be worth stripping down a genuine M17 Stahlhelm for its liner and strap to refit this helmet using genuine period components as it is so extremely rare ,this hasn’t been attempted and is being offered in its original untouched,unmessed with condition. LI22