[Matt Haberfeld]

Greetings, everyone! I've been a long time lurker and I have a question I think someone here can answer. A friend of mine has come across a helmet and he asked me to help identify it, but to be honest I haven't a clue. The inside has chain mail held together by leather, and hopefully some of the marks on the outside of the helmet should help indicate where/when it is from.

Pic 1
Pic 2
Pic 3

Anything you can tell me about it would be greatly appreciated! Also, he has a halberd if you are feeling extra generous.

Halberd Pic 1
Halberd Pic 2

[Allan Senefelder]

The helmet looks to be one of the ones plowed out of China about 7-8 years ago on ebay. I've been left with the impression they're fakes, the stringing of the lamellar plates for the neck defense ( thats what the neck defense is made of not maille ) giving a clue. I've never seen on of these where the lamellar is strung properly, the plates only strung on the ends and never having the holes in the middle of each plate in the row laced together. They are meant to be riveted versions of Tibetan/Mongolian lamellar eight plate helmets, and while helmets in this configuration were made, i'm personally unfamiliar with an original example where whole rows of lacing holes were never used, much less consitently not used in row after row. All the ebay helmets of this type i've seen come up ( at least 60 probably many more) shared this trait of unused rows of holes. Its possible I suppose that the bowl and lamellar plates may be original but not associated, and cobbed together ( thus the bad lacing ) for resale by the vast forgery industry in China, which while still technically makes it a fake but at least the elements while not matched would have age. I'm not an expert and maybe some one who's more versed in Tibetan/Mongolian armour can give a better assement.

Some better pics of the halberd would help. The top spike is unfortunately missing. I've seen some fairly elaborately fileworked very late halberds but without better pics its hard to tell.

[Matt Haberfeld]

Thank you for the wonderful reply! I see what you're saying about the lamellar, I found a picture of a laced neck guard here to compare it to.

Concerning the halberd, what specifically would you like to see to help you identify it? I'm sure I can get my friend to take more pictures of any angle you'd like to see better.