joerookery

Thank you for the fixed date. I believe they should be scarce. You are right the ersatz came into play around this time. Right around the embargo of leather goods. There is another stamp on the inside but it is to faint to see or take a photo. I believe it could be the regiment stamp. I could learn a little more on these myself. My main focus of collecting is steel helmets.

All the best,

Joey

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I too am new to this forum, and I thought I would weigh in. I have done a lot of work on ersatz recently and it is a fascinating topic.

The old conventional thought was that the M 95 brass pickelhaubes were followed by M 15 steel gray pickelhaubes (as you ran out of brass) which were followed by Ersatz helmets (as you ran out of leather) and then eventually in came the steel helmets or stahlhelm.  That is the wrong idea.  However, it is ingrained in the collecting community despite the fact that it is well indicated in several references.

By September of 1914 the demand for helmets started to outstrip the existing supply.  Making a leather helmet, took a long time with curing of the helmet and production facilities.  What was needed were quick helmets to be issued to reserve component soldiers as they moved towards the front.  Between September 1914 and March 1915, all sorts of Ersatz methods were used to equip millions of German soldiers.  In June of 1915, the M15 type helmet was introduced and demand had been sated in the production of leather helmets.  Ersatz models were only used for reservists back home after that.  The steel Frankenstein helmet was introduced in 1916, in a slow process, where reservists back home still could use pickelhauben. 

I have an old article on this at http://www.coljs.com/articles/ersatzarticle.htm.

I hope this is of some interest. It certainly has been to me!