April 5, 2024
The Ultimate "Hollywood Marine" Sousa Band Dress Helmet--USMC 1892 EGA
Pricing & History
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US Marine Band fulldress spiked helmet, constructed for and worn in the 1952 film biography of John Philip Sousa-- "Stars & Stripes Forever"--in very good condition. To most helmet collectors, this piece is an atrocity, a Hate Crime against an original arifact. To film buffs and those of us who appreciate Hollywood ingenuity in the Golden Age, it is a one-of-a-kind memento of a long-lost era. This helmet was one of dozens prepared for the biopic by the hatters' shops at Hollywood's Western Costume Company. These union tradesmen took US M1881 enlisted fulldress helmet bodies--many of them in mint condition--from company stock and painted them in an off-white, light pearl gray enamel (to play as white, without strobing, on film). Somebody found an original USMC M1892 eagle, globe, and anchor helmet badge--the largest EGA device ever used by the Corps--and the upstairs insignia shop cast scores of reproductions in lead; they were then equipped with affixing wires and brass-plated. The hatters affixed these devices to the newly-painted helmets, and completed the assemblage by attaching random patterns of sidebuttons, chinchains, and US Army M1881 helmet spikes and bases. These last two components were bolted together, holes drilled at four points in the base, then stitched to the helmet body (bypassing the problematic threadings on the
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