Prussia Pickelhaube / Spiked Helmet for OYV (one Year Volunteer) in Line Pioneer

One Year Volunteer (OYV) for a line Bataillone of Pioneers. In the German army, Pioneer’s were engineers. They were responsible for building roads and bridges. They were also tasked with building trenches which were far more efficient than soldiers who dug them early in the war. The trenches that they built were far more sophisticated and larger than the crude early war trenches. They included underground bunkers which included sleeping quarters for soldiers to shelter them from English and French shelling. If you saw the movie “1917″ you saw examples of this work and the German trenches were far better than the English. The English protection for their soldiers were simple dugouts that offered little protection where the German trenches were bigger and better reinforced and the underground bunkers allowed the German soldiers to withstand bombardment and arise to fend off English attacks.

This pickelhaube has far better than average leather than we often see. They is a rough spot and some minor spidering quite nice. As this is a OYV helmet we see two signs of officer level. First we see an open or voided crown and second we see officer Reich and State kokarden. It has lugs instead of officer stars which fits the regulations for a OYV. The spike and officer pearl wing are present and the spike is exceptionally tall.

Inside the spike helmet we see a brown leather sweatband. We also see a very well used silk liner which is in poor condition. Under the silk liner we see most of the original hardware. The two nuts and bolts that secure the wappen do not match. But there are NO double holes where the wappen is attached.
This is a very nice ORIGINAL OYV pickelhaube that is value priced.