East India company Helmet

[Stuart Bates]

Can anyone translate the writing on this EIC Artillery helmet (into English!)

Thanks,

Stuart

[leigh kitchen]

Is the central design original, or an adaptation of an original design?

[Stuart Bates]

Is the central design original, or an adaptation of an original design?

Leigh,

I will have to ask the owner of the helmet. So will post a response when I receive one.

Thanks,

Stuart

[Ed_Haynes]

Well, not East India Company. The date, 1295 AH, corresponds to 1878/79 CE. The Company was twenty years dead by then.

I am struggling with the lower legend. Any chance of a more detailed image? Let me see what I can do.

I am thinking Afghanistan . . . .

[Stuart Bates]

Well, not East India Company. The date, 1295 AH, corresponds to 1878/79 CE. The Company was twenty years dead by then.

I am struggling with the lower legend. Any chance of a more detailed image? Let me see what I can do.

I am thinking Afghanistan . . . .

Ed,

I will pass your comments on to Gordon who won't be happy that it is not EIC. I will post the hi-res version that he gave me. In fact here it is -

Stuart

Edited April 9, 2009 by Stuart Bates

[Ed_Haynes]

Sorry. 1290 (!) AH = 1873/74 CE.

Makes me even more certain regarding Afghan origin. I once saw a volume with some nice Afghan uniform plates. Which was it????

To work at lower legend .....

[TS Allen]

Osprey's Men At Arms series shows a similar helmet. North-West Frontier 1837-1947 by Robert Wilkinson-Latham. Plate G, figure 3 shows Amir Ayub Khan, ca. 1880, holding a similar brass helmet.

According to the caption in the back "The Amir wore a heavy beaten brass helmet in imitation of the British Albert-pattern cavalry helmet, with with feather plumes, oakleaf strip decoration on front, back and peak, and a badge featuring oak and laurel leaves surrounding a cut star."

I could imagine this being an artillery pattern of the same helmet?

~TS