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glatt · 06-08-2015, 07:54 AM

I'm slowly working on selling an old German army helmet that my Grandfather let me have after I saw it hanging on a nail in his attic. I first saw it when I was maybe around 10 and I was enthralled with it. A real World War 2 German army helmet! I had asked him about it then, and he didn't know how it had gotten in his attic, or what the story was. That was maybe in 1977-78 or so. Then, in 1985, I was helping him clean junk out of his attic and I asked him about it again. He said I could have it, but didn't know why I would want such a ghoulish item.

So I took it and occasionally would wear it (in my room,) but it mostly stayed in my old trunk.

So recently I've been looking for stuff that is small and valuable and has no real sentimental value to sell on eBay. I remembered this helmet, and pulled it out of the trunk for the first time in about a decade or so.

The leather liner, which was brittle but complete in the 80's is now partially fallen apart, and about a third of it is missing. I must have thrown a piece away when I was wearing it one time. I started to try to research the helmet because I know nothing about them, and I discovered that lots of countries used this style of helmet, and they go for between $30 and $1000 on eBay. After a fair amount of internet reading, I have figured out that it isn't a WW2 helmet. It's a WWI helmet, and it looks like it's German, but it doesn't have a manufacturer's stamp. I'd say it's a size 66 M17 WWI German helmet.

And my mom is in town right now, so I was talking to her about it, and the timeline for it being a WWI helmet makes sense. My great grandfather hated the Germans. So much, that he didn't want my grandfather, who was of recent German descent, to marry his daughter. So they waited for the old guy to die before they got married. So this helmet was my great grandfather's trophy against the Germans he hated. It's a symbol of family dysfunction as well as being a ghoulish trophy taken off a dead soldier in some trench somewhere.

So it's got bad juju. And I think it's good for me to get it out of the house. So now I just want to try to figure out what it's worth so I can hold an appropriate auction. It's all completely original, so I think that works in my favor. It still has a fair amount of paint, with tiny rust specks poking through all over the place and a nice patina. It has the steel liner band and a partial leather liner, which is kinda amazing considering it's almost 100 years old. I wish I knew more about its wartime history, because that seems to jack the price up. But it was brought into the family shortly after WWI. In the 20's or 30's.

06-08-2015, 07:54 AM	#77
glatt ™ Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Arlington, VA Posts: 27,717	I'm slowly working on selling an old German army helmet that my Grandfather let me have after I saw it hanging on a nail in his attic. I first saw it when I was maybe around 10 and I was enthralled with it. A real World War 2 German army helmet! I had asked him about it then, and he didn't know how it had gotten in his attic, or what the story was. That was maybe in 1977-78 or so. Then, in 1985, I was helping him clean junk out of his attic and I asked him about it again. He said I could have it, but didn't know why I would want such a ghoulish item. So I took it and occasionally would wear it (in my room,) but it mostly stayed in my old trunk. So recently I've been looking for stuff that is small and valuable and has no real sentimental value to sell on eBay. I remembered this helmet, and pulled it out of the trunk for the first time in about a decade or so. The leather liner, which was brittle but complete in the 80's is now partially fallen apart, and about a third of it is missing. I must have thrown a piece away when I was wearing it one time. I started to try to research the helmet because I know nothing about them, and I discovered that lots of countries used this style of helmet, and they go for between $30 and $1000 on eBay. After a fair amount of internet reading, I have figured out that it isn't a WW2 helmet. It's a WWI helmet, and it looks like it's German, but it doesn't have a manufacturer's stamp. I'd say it's a size 66 M17 WWI German helmet. And my mom is in town right now, so I was talking to her about it, and the timeline for it being a WWI helmet makes sense. My great grandfather hated the Germans. So much, that he didn't want my grandfather, who was of recent German descent, to marry his daughter. So they waited for the old guy to die before they got married. So this helmet was my great grandfather's trophy against the Germans he hated. It's a symbol of family dysfunction as well as being a ghoulish trophy taken off a dead soldier in some trench somewhere. So it's got bad juju. And I think it's good for me to get it out of the house. So now I just want to try to figure out what it's worth so I can hold an appropriate auction. It's all completely original, so I think that works in my favor. It still has a fair amount of paint, with tiny rust specks poking through all over the place and a nice patina. It has the steel liner band and a partial leather liner, which is kinda amazing considering it's almost 100 years old. I wish I knew more about its wartime history, because that seems to jack the price up. But it was brought into the family shortly after WWI. In the 20's or 30's.