M26 Adrian Helmet - Casque Adrian

Cheers Andy, The straps are easy to find, what worries me more is the liner, they are usually around 30 euros at least and for that price I can almost get a nice M-26 helmet with an insignia.

 

ya i know what you mean Skip, that kind of sucks alright to have to buy something that should already have been with the helmet in the first place!

I've seen a lot of people take the elasticated chinstraps of tommy helmets, because it's so easy to do and then sell them seperatly, just to make that extra bit of money - I really hate that!!! makes me mad, because their messing with a good, sound helmet that survived the war only to fall victim to greed!

 

ya i know what you mean Skip, that kind of sucks alright to have to buy something that should already have been with the helmet in the first place!

I've seen a lot of people take the elasticated chinstraps of tommy helmets, because it's so easy to do and then sell them seperatly, just to make that extra bit of money - I really hate that!!! makes me mad, because their messing with a good, sound helmet that survived the war only to fall victim to greed!

 

You are correct I'm afraid M-26 straps go for about 10 each. It's nothing more than a piece of leather, a clip and two rivets, so I'm getting good at making them myself with original clips and rivet just replacing the leather that rot away when the relic is found in a barn or elsewhere (where the metal parts survived but not the leather).
I have about five extra clips and a box of rivets, so it's more like a question of time than money or availability.

 

ya that's smart thinking alright skip, save a euro or two.

just out of curiosity, what sort of weather have you guys got at present?,
I hear the normandy average for the month of april is about 13 degrees c ..... but do you get a fair bit of rain?

(im just getting a few things ready for next week, right clothes etc)

 

Wonderful weather , walking around in a T-shirt, siting outside with a beer, watching the ladies walk by. But some rain is expected the next days .

 

Now your Adrian Medics helmet is one I like the most-great score there as well. I noticed a dealer I used to buy from on occasion and who used to have great prices. Well, he had about 20 or so Adrians in varying degrees of collectability. Do you want to know some of the pricesI saw him listing them for? Well-on average they were about $250-$300 per-and many of them were not complete or in good shape. One of them had a dark green triangle painted on it-which im assuming was a unit insignia. That one-had no liner nor chinstrap-but he wanted $800 dollars for it. He had a few Croix de Guerre for slae at about $35-$40 per.


We had a heck of a bad thunderstorm here earlier today. It rained hard for about an hour and quickly dissipated.

 

hey Skip thanks for the weather report - ya a bit of rain here and there for the first few days, but beautiful after that.

i saw many adrains on my travels - some in great condition (medic ones too - but very expensive) , I also saw some helmets way over priced - but these were usually in tourist areas.

anyway i was trying to save my money for a german one instead as i had none in my little collection up to now (but now i have two )....but i did find a nice little shop that was selling adrain shells for a fiver.....i was a long way from my car, the shop was closing and only had change on me, so i was able to scrape together 5 euro in the end picked the nicest one they had.

- not bad considering i saw ones in worse condition being sold for 40euro in tourist areas!!!!

 

Glad you got your helmet for the real price ! It(d getting hard to get them for less than 20 now, so 15 is okay , 10 a bargain, and 5 almost rare. Don't hesitate to show me a picture.

 

will do skip, as soon as i get a chance to sort out my camera

 

Skip as requested, about 70 - 75% paint left ....not bad for a fiver

 

Great condition indeed. Try some slight cleaning and then put some transparent shoe polish on it. Then make it shine and it will restore about 90% of the original paint back.

Also I recently found out tha tmy helmet shown in post number 61 is a rare experimental M-23 model ( the shape of an M-26 but absolutely no rivets and the inside is still from the old M-15 one) Bingo. Now I will need to change the roundel as it would be more accurate with a WWI insignia rather than with the M-37 roundel .

I have several new ones too : here is My belgium Police Adrian

 

thats interesting and a nice surprise! when you say "inside", do you mean the way the liner would be attached to the helmet with the corrugated metal as opposed to the four metal loop things?

 

that is correct. The liner that goes inside is also the one tha tgoes in the M-15s. Quite surprsing when you have a helmet that is shaped as a M-26 one. It thefore has no rivets on the sides , font and back, only the ones for the crest.

This is another one from my collection: a Kaki M-15 with Romanian insignia. The kaki painting is 100% original. It was painted over the horizon blu (which is also there under the kaki) However the original insignia was a colonial one (I can still still see the marks where it used to be) , but I don't have it , so I put this one instead .

 

very nice Skip, you've made a good job of the this helmet. - it looks really well

actually i wonder - how is the corrugated metal attached to the helmets of the M-15's, is it at the joint of the front and back peice? (where you see the two rivets on the outside)

 

just a qucik note, (im going to bed in a minute) but a while back a saw a "adrain miners" helmet, i think from ww1 for sale on ebay, i might have saved a picture of it. so will look for it tomorrow/later today when i wake up.

 

Indeed the corrugated metal is attached to the M-23 model exalctly as on the M-15 one. There are no rivets used, except for the crest. In this way it is already the "modern" one piece helmet (except the crest) ,as opposed to the M-15 which had the rim rivetted and was made of several pieces assembled together.

This is a picture of My kaki helmet before restoration , as well of another M-15 bought the same day

 

Ok chaps, her eis the defense Passive Helmet I have received from the Gentleman .

It is complete , except the chin strap which is parlty missing. This is the first time I have an ersatz inside from linnen istead of leather. Those were used by the home front in times when leather interiors were hard to find.

 

very nice skipper, do you know what the 'white band' means ? .....or is it standard with the with the defense Passive ?

.......................

ps. nice helmet, it looks to be in a nice condition with lots of history attached

 

standard and handpainted too. They were used by cleaning squads, diggers etc... and this one is first hand. The man who gave it me said he two other ones waiting for me , but he wanted to be sure I had cleaned the first one properly before he mentionned those.