Certain artifacts scream to be acquired, and few more forcefully than a rimless Brodie. This is the earliest of the British helmets created in the Great War and it has that recognizable shape which says "our side" if you're born in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, or Britain. By contrast the German helmet shape now says "Nazi" and so has tainted the German helmets of WWI, even though Jewish soldiers fought for the Kaiser in such head gear. We are as prone to give all kinds of meaning to object shapes as we are to words. This says "good", that says "bad".
I found this one on top of a box in the junk yard of an antique shop that has its wares stacked in heaps. For $35 I bought an icon, something that is more a relic than an artifact.
Being as it's old and has been knocked about fo 100 years there was no liner. So for $65 I bought a reproduction liner and now it's good to go for another hundred years.
This detail shows the rippling in the pressing of the steel on these old helmets. They were remarkably crude being stamped out in the millions in a very short time in 1916. Subsequently the pressings became cleaner and a rim was added around the raw edge to reduce injuries from flying helmets. As protection they worked against shrapnel and falling debris, but these were not bullet proof.
I picture the helmet, below, with the lace of my grandmother's bridal dress. (1923) These are the kinds of artifacts that are kept for 100 years. In this juxtaposition I imagine all the young soldiers who got married days before they went to the front. Many did not return. And like words being strung together to make a sentence two or more artifacts together can tell a story. When we know the language we can see the meaning.
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