A crudely painted red buffalo on helmet with a 1915 dated buffalo nickel.
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Description
Not pretty but real as they say concerning this original WWI 1917 American helmet identified to the 92nd Infantry Division. The division was one of two made up of African American soldiers. The helmet has a buffalo painted on the front, about 5 inches long and in the color of a reddish brown paint over a dark green (not OD).
A contractor’s stamp is under the tarred canvas lining; a company from Webster, Mass.
There is a soldier’s initials scratched in the metal surface on the underside of the brim, “B.F.P.”
The lining show a good deal of wear, some of the rubber pads missing along with the chinstrap. The last person to own this wired the lining in backward, twisting the leather retaining strap for the lining which I chose not to touch. Inside with an older wire is a 1915 buffalo nickel that was worked in around the upper netting of the lining. The Indian head has been re-worked to look like a Black soldier in helmet. This carving on nickels is the art form known as “Hobo Nickels.” The artist used a decent condition 1915 nickel as his canvas.
This helmet having come from a 50 year collection of an experienced collector, I have to assume that these items were found together as meticulous as this collector was.
A lot of the soldiers in the black divisions in WWI served with French colonial troops and many of these men were issued French equipment, making US made helmets for the 92nd and 93rd a bit scarcer.
USPS Priority $15.00
Additional information
| Weight | 25 lbs |
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