Chinstrap inspection

Always hard to judge from photos, and I’m not an expert either, but everything looks original to me :)
 
I agree; difficult to be sure from photos, but it has the correct details and has real patina (green in the inside corners). You might try a black light on the thread. A good repo could still have pre-1945 non-glow thread, but it would make me feel better. It will display well.

Ron
 
Although I'm far from an expert in judging it, it looks good to me. It has all the characteristics an original chinstrap should have, so I think it belongs to the steelhelmet you found it on.
 
You would expect to see black leather with brass fittings, but brown leather with brass fittings was a rare feature reserved for certain pre-war helmets, notably the early Feldgrau trial helmets and Maschinen-Gewehr Bataillon Tschakos. This is definitely brown leather, not worn blackened leatther.

I agree that this chinstrap looks good, but I wonder if it was ever used on a Stahlhelm for any length of time. There doesn't appear to be wear or other traces on the brass loops to indicate that it has.

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I can't member ever seeing a chinstrap that was supposedly on a Stahlhelm for over a hundred years that had fittings in anywhere near such good condition.

The fittings IMO should have much more wear on them from a hundred plus years interaction with the steel lugs. They are always scratched and over that much time become almost part of the Stahlhelm and are always damaged, scratched or bent when removed.
 
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The areas of buckle wear on the leather would make me believe it has been on a stahlhelm most of its’ life. I forget stahlhelm history, but would they have been issued with grey steel fittings when introduced in 1916? I know there were many brass fitted straps in circulation at that point and a soldier could easily use his brass pickelhaube strap on his new stahlhelm. I have a few helmets I have purchased at estate auctions of wwi vets that had brass fitted straps. They were still with the helmets because the male helmet post lugs were peened large on the outer ends or the strap hooks were bent so as to be retained. This makes good sense in combat conditions.

Ron
 
Nice to see so many joining in on the conversation. I appreciatie every opinion. :)
The other steel helmets I have all have grey steel fittings and, more over, the wear matches with that of the shell and liner.

The helmet this came from has a liner in a pretty rough condition and the chinstrap is absolutely not. A chinstrap can be easily switched or replaced during wartime or any geven time since then of course but in this case it's definitely added later. That's why I wanted to know for sure it's an ok one.
 
Hello,
I agree with everyone above.
This chinstrap is authentic, the fittings have all the details of the period ones. Concerning the black varnish, from the mobilization, the trimmings are still in brass until May 1915, but the leather of the strap remains “natural”, that is to say of brown color. Thereafter, M15 gray-iron chinstraps will very rarely be in black varnish.
The presence of such a brass chinstrap on a Stahlhelm 16 is hardly surprising. Stahlhelmen were delivered to the front without chinstraps, and the new recipient was responsible for transferring the chinstraps from the spiked helmet.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
 

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I think it's clear that the reason the Stahlhelm incorporated the Pickelhaube chinstrap lugs in its design is not because the system was effective - it was far from it - but rather due to thrift. They knew there would be vast numbers of Pickelhaube chinstraps made surplus when the Hauben were withdrawn.

Almost all of the early M16 helmets I've owned have had brass hardware chinstraps and a good number of later helmets with the M17 liner system had these as well. The chinstraps have survived in various states of preservation. Not all show heavy wear to the brass loops, but there is always wear enough to show that the chinstrap had been used on a Stahlhelm.

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