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  1. #1
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    Marino Helmet, Huggins & Scott

    the marino "gamer" h&s has listed looks great, has a lot going for it imo, but there are a few glaring issues that i would want put to rest before i spent "marino game used" bucks on it. the helmet is a rawlings "aims" (advanced impact management system) model which a few pros wore back in the day, including marino who sported it from 1986-1988 (mike webster of the steelers and jerry holmes of the jets were a couple of other guys that wore this type of rawlings as well). it's attributed to marino's 1986 season but i would say that's out given the decals are wrong for that year and marino's actual '86 gamer had a vacant drill hole that this helmet lacks. 1987 and 1988 are also problematic given that marino used double side facemask clips during those years (pictured below) and there is no evidence that the h&s helmet was ever drilled for the extra facemask clips. fwiw the helmet decals match very well to marino's 1987 helmet. so before i dropped big bucks on this helmet i would want to see a photo circa 1986-1988 that shows marino wearing a rawlings "aims" helmet without a vacant drill hole and without double clips - if an interested party could track down a 1987 photo of this, it would be tough to argue that this wasn't marino's gamer imo. especially if it was fitted with the leather rawlings jaw pads marino wore with this helmet...

    the photo on the left is the h&s helmet, the center photo is from 1986 and the photo on the right shows marino's 1987 and 1988 double facemask clip setup. needless to say the h&s helmet doesn't match...



    btw this particular type of helmet, a rawlings "aims" (or anfl), is not uncommon on ebay, especially in white. here are a few that have sold at auction which were made into reproduction dolphins helmets...




    h&s has a couple of other helmets listed that look interesting at first glance but also have issues when looked at more closely. for example the 1987 randall cunningham "gamer" is problematic because it's a riddell vsr1 which i don't believe cunningham ever wore. if you look at the game photo below (right) you will notice a crown air valve circled in yellow, a valve which the h&s helmet doesn't have - that's because cunningham isn't sporting a vsr1 in the photo. and of course the high chin strap snap on the h&s helmet is postioned wrong - in fact it's rendered useless behind the facemask...




    the other h&s helmet that's problematic is the gastineau "gamer". gastineau wore an air-power helmet (bike) during his first seven years in the league (1979-1985) and then he switched to a riddell for the remainder of his career. the photo on the right is from 1985, the last year he wore an air-power (bike) - notice that the nose bumper in the game photo reads "bike" while the h&s helmet reads "a(h)ir". the thing is the "a(h)ir" nose bumpers didn't replace the "bike" nose bumpers until around 1987 or so, after gastineau had stopped wearing this type of helmet. in other words the "a(h)ir" bumper wasn't available, wasn't introduced, until after gastineau had sitched to a riddell. is it possible that gastineau used this helmet during a game or two after swicthing to a riddell, after the "a(h)ir" bumper was introduced? could it be an old gastineau helmet that was refitted with the newer "a(h)ir" bumper only to be regulated to his backup or issued to another player? anything is possible i suppose. but wouldn't it be nice to simply find a single shot of gastineau sporting such a helmet among the many photos of him available? or a photo that showed the same sort of makeshift "99" that appears on the h&s helmet?




    frankly, these three helmets remind me of quite a few others i've seen in the past; helmets that closely resemble what the player wore (correct era, facemask, etc.) which have been signed by the player, usually years later. and with the sig the helmet seems to mysteriously (or miraculously?) become that player's "gamer". the staubach helmet comes immediately to mind, the hauss helmet is another one...

    btw i'm not saying that these helmets are beyond a shadow of a doubt bunk - i'm saying that they all have what i believe to be serious issues and that some sort of photo/film support would be required for me to believe that any of them are as claimed.

    ....
    robert

  2. #2
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    Re: Marino Helmet, Huggins & Scott

    Another tremendous diagnosis of future helmets up for auction Robert, thank you. Not to step on your feet at all, but hopefully to add a bit... Gastineau changed his facemasks and clips more than once during a season. He went from a facemask with 3 horizontal bars (NJOP-SW?) and a facemask with 4 horizontal bars (NJOP or NJOP Red Dot?) during the 1985-1986 seasons. I cannot be certain, but perhaps he started tinkering with a Riddell helmet during the end of the 1985 season? That would explain the change in facemasks, given his bike had less horizontal bars on the facemask than his riddell helmet? I cannot be certain, because I cannot get a clear picture of his front bumper from 1985 when he is wearing the fuller cage. But a GLARING problem with the Gastineau helmet (and I mentioned this in a previous thread), is that I cannot find any historical references of him wearing a high hookup chin strap. So even if all of these instances that you mentioned above can somehow be proven incorrect (which is 99.9% unlikely), you will be hard pressed to find him wearing a high hookup chinstrap.

  3. #3
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    Re: Marino Helmet, Huggins & Scott

    Quote Originally Posted by aeneas01 View Post
    the marino "gamer" h&s has listed looks great, has a lot going for it imo, but there are a few glaring issues that i would want put to rest before i spent "marino game used" bucks on it. the helmet is a rawlings "aims" (advanced impact management system) model which a few pros wore back in the day, including marino who sported it from 1986-1988 (mike webster of the steelers and jerry holmes of the jets were a couple of other guys that wore this type of rawlings as well). it's attributed to marino's 1986 season but i would say that's out given the decals are wrong for that year and marino's actual '86 gamer had a vacant drill hole that this helmet lacks. 1987 and 1988 are also problematic given that marino used double side facemask clips during those years (pictured below) and there is no evidence that the h&s helmet was ever drilled for the extra facemask clips. fwiw the helmet decals match very well to marino's 1987 helmet. so before i dropped big bucks on this helmet i would want to see a photo circa 1986-1988 that shows marino wearing a rawlings "aims" helmet without a vacant drill hole and without double clips - if an interested party could track down a 1987 photo of this, it would be tough to argue that this wasn't marino's gamer imo. especially if it was fitted with the leather rawlings jaw pads marino wore with this helmet...

    the photo on the left is the h&s helmet, the center photo is from 1986 and the photo on the right shows marino's 1987 and 1988 double facemask clip setup. needless to say the h&s helmet doesn't match...



    btw this particular type of helmet, a rawlings "aims" (or anfl), is not uncommon on ebay, especially in white. here are a few that have sold at auction which were made into reproduction dolphins helmets...




    h&s has a couple of other helmets listed that look interesting at first glance but also have issues when looked at more closely. for example the 1987 randall cunningham "gamer" is problematic because it's a riddell vsr1 which i don't believe cunningham ever wore. if you look at the game photo below (right) you will notice a crown air valve circled in yellow, a valve which the h&s helmet doesn't have - that's because cunningham isn't sporting a vsr1 in the photo. and of course the high chin strap snap on the h&s helmet is postioned wrong - in fact it's rendered useless behind the facemask...




    the other h&s helmet that's problematic is the gastineau "gamer". gastineau wore an air-power helmet (bike) during his first seven years in the league (1979-1985) and then he switched to a riddell for the remainder of his career. the photo on the right is from 1985, the last year he wore an air-power (bike) - notice that the nose bumper in the game photo reads "bike" while the h&s helmet reads "a(h)ir". the thing is the "a(h)ir" nose bumpers didn't replace the "bike" nose bumpers until around 1987 or so, after gastineau had stopped wearing this type of helmet. in other words the "a(h)ir" bumper wasn't available, wasn't introduced, until after gastineau had sitched to a riddell. is it possible that gastineau used this helmet during a game or two after swicthing to a riddell, after the "a(h)ir" bumper was introduced? could it be an old gastineau helmet that was refitted with the newer "a(h)ir" bumper only to be regulated to his backup or issued to another player? anything is possible i suppose. but wouldn't it be nice to simply find a single shot of gastineau sporting such a helmet among the many photos of him available? or a photo that showed the same sort of makeshift "99" that appears on the h&s helmet?




    frankly, these three helmets remind me of quite a few others i've seen in the past; helmets that closely resemble what the player wore (correct era, facemask, etc.) which have been signed by the player, usually years later. and with the sig the helmet seems to mysteriously (or miraculously?) become that player's "gamer". the staubach helmet comes immediately to mind, the hauss helmet is another one...

    btw i'm not saying that these helmets are beyond a shadow of a doubt bunk - i'm saying that they all have what i believe to be serious issues and that some sort of photo/film support would be required for me to believe that any of them are as claimed.

    ....
    Some additional photos of Marino in the Rawlings helmet...still has the drill hole...
    Attached Images Attached Images   

  4. #4
    Senior Member JasonBanz's Avatar
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    Re: Marino Helmet, Huggins & Scott

    I am in no way a helmet expert. Infact I was burned at once and the helmet experts have taught me alot since then. It appears though on the Marino, the Dolphins logo between the helmet clips do not match up. When I looked up some photos I did find a photo from later in 1986, where the logo between the helmet clips do match up. It also looks like the drill hole is also missing. Could be the angle too. Here it is.

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  5. #5
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    Re: Marino Helmet, Huggins & Scott

    Quote Originally Posted by jhunt28 View Post
    Another tremendous diagnosis of future helmets up for auction Robert, thank you. Not to step on your feet at all, but hopefully to add a bit... Gastineau changed his facemasks and clips more than once during a season. He went from a facemask with 3 horizontal bars (NJOP-SW?) and a facemask with 4 horizontal bars (NJOP or NJOP Red Dot?) during the 1985-1986 seasons. I cannot be certain, but perhaps he started tinkering with a Riddell helmet during the end of the 1985 season? That would explain the change in facemasks, given his bike had less horizontal bars on the facemask than his riddell helmet? I cannot be certain, because I cannot get a clear picture of his front bumper from 1985 when he is wearing the fuller cage. But a GLARING problem with the Gastineau helmet (and I mentioned this in a previous thread), is that I cannot find any historical references of him wearing a high hookup chin strap. So even if all of these instances that you mentioned above can somehow be proven incorrect (which is 99.9% unlikely), you will be hard pressed to find him wearing a high hookup chinstrap.
    yes, 1985 was the last year gastineau wore a bike (air-power) helmet and it was also the year that he switched midseason from an '80s style single wire njop facemask (left photo, 1985) to a reverse strap njop (center photo, 1985). gastineau continued to sport the reverse strap njop when he switched to a riddell after the 1985 season (right photo) and continued to wear this mask for the remainder of his career as far as i can tell. regarding the high-point chinstrap, you're absolutely right - he didn't use a high-point chinstrap however his helmets were fitted with high-point chinstrap snaps.

    imo this is just another example of one those helmets out there that requires a convoluted story and a huge leap of faith to make it fit - another one of those helmets that, despite the ton of game photos and film frames available of a well known player, just can't be reasonably matched...





    great photos of marino beantown, fwiw they are from 1986. do you happen to have any of 1987? as i mentioned in my original post, several of the helmet decals on the h&s helmet are wrong for 1986 (which is the year it's attributed to) including the back number decals - note the difference in the "3" that can be seen in the photos below...




    and, fwiw, the photo on the left (below) is what h&s used to style match this lid, getty image 82897798. per h&s: "Getty image #82897798 shows Marino wearing what appears to be this very equipment." not quite - the getty image shows a different "dolphins" bumper decal and clearly shows that marino's helmet was fitted with rawlings leather jaw pads (unlike the h&s helmet). and, of course, if the getty photo was a side shot it would also show the vacant drill holes that the h&s helmet is missing...



    ...
    robert

  6. #6
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    Re: Marino Helmet, Huggins & Scott

    Robert...not sure if this helps, but this photo is dated 1988...here is that photos link on eBay...


    http://cgi.ebay.com/1988-DAN-MARINO-...3A1%7C294%3A50
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  7. #7
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    Re: Marino Helmet, Huggins & Scott

    Quote Originally Posted by beantown View Post
    Robert...not sure if this helps, but this photo is dated 1988...here is that photos link on eBay...


    http://cgi.ebay.com/1988-DAN-MARINO-...3A1%7C294%3A50

    have lots of 1988 marino photos but thanks just the same! the problem with 1988 (and 1987 for that matter) is that marino's helmet was fitted two side facemask clips on each side of his helmet - the auction helmet only shows one per side and no evidence that two ever existed...

    ...
    robert

 

 

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