Anything Wrong W/ This Steven Jackson Helmet?

[aeneas01]

this helmet showed up on grey flannel on 12/05 as a "steven jackson game used rookie helmet" complete with loa - it sold for $650. can anyone detect any problem with this helmet?

[cohibasmoker]

What can be wrong with the helmet? It's from Grey Flannel - The Standard for the Hobby.

Jim

[Eric]

Missing the Rams Sticker?

[hblakewolf]

As noted, it has a LOA from Grey Flannel. According to Grey Flannel website, they are the "Standard of the Industry" and are THE authenticators for the Basketball Hall of Fame. As such, one must conclude that the helmet is the real-deal and a photo or some type of evidence available that this helmet, void of the Rams sticker on front, was used and is legit, correct?

Howard Wolf
hblakewolf@patmedia.net

[aeneas01]

steven jackson doesn't wear riddell helmets - he is a schutt guy. he wore schutt throughout his college career at oregon state and he has worn schutt since day 1 with the rams.

i contacted grey flannel and pointed this out when they had this helmet listed - they responded by saying that they would investigate immediately and get back to me. yet they let the auction stand, made no alteration to the item description and never did get back to me...

alas...

[Eric]

How can you tell he wears a Schutt helmet in the pics? (I doesn't mean anything, but the chinstrap in the game photo is a Riddell)

[aeneas01]

How can you tell he wears a Schutt helmet in the pics? (I doesn't mean anything, but the chinstrap in the game photo is a Riddell)

there are many ways to quickly and easily tell the difference between a riddell helmet and a schutt helmet, even in photos. for example, riddell helmets have the famous 1" wide center exterior extrusion that runs down the middle of the helmet from front to back while schutt helmets (and others) have perfectly smooth exteriors, i.e. no exterior extrusion (which you can easily notice in the sj photo you posted). the grey flannel helmet pictured above is a riddell vsr4; it's easy to see its raised center extrusion.

what's interesting about the 1" extrusion appearing on riddell helmets is that it is actually nothing more than a relic from days past when helmet manufacturers made their lids from three pieces of molded plastic as opposed to the one-piece mold process used today. the three pieces included the left side of the shell, the right side of the shell and the 1" center extrusion which anchored the two halves together with the help of glue and rivets.

when riddell moved from the 3-piece shell to the one-piece shell it decided to keep the 1" extrusion even though it no longer served any structural purpose. what it did serve was a center guide that equipment managers had grown accustomed to when applying helmet stripes - and it also easily identified a helmet as a riddell.

however riddell did finally do away with the 1" extrusion when they introduced their new generation of helmet, the "revolution". but the revolution's predecessor, the vsr4, and every other riddell helmet before had the 1" extrusion. fwiw, safety experts tend to agree that the smooth helmet exteriors (the revoltion, schutt, etc.) are better at deflecting impacts when compared to the riddell helmets with the 1" extrusion.

speaking of the old 3-piece shells, i wish the wonderful folks at helmet hut would consider restating their claim that "almost two years were spent to retool and recreate the voluminous manufacturing process required to reproduce this helmet in its exact, orignal form"

although the great folks at helmet hut make absolutely beautiful reproductions (their paint jobs are spectacular!), they do not reproduce them in their "exact, original form". for example, they use a two-piece shell instead of the original 3-piece method - helmet hut saves a step by molding the 1" center extrusion into one of the helmet halves as opposed to correctly molding it separately, as a third piece. also, helmet hut molds their vintage reproduction helmets in gray plastic to save another step/expense. riddell molded their helmets in a bone-white plastic and then painted them gray on the inside...

What can be wrong with the helmet? It's from Grey Flannel - The Standard for the Hobby.

[cohibasmoker]

Eric,

Riddell utilizes a 1" center-ridge on their helmets. Some teams that wear Riddell helmets will use the ridge to add some sort of contrasting team stripe. Eric, in your photograph, there doesn't appear to be a 1" center-ridge.

If you look at the photo that aeneas01 provided, and I believe that was the photo that Grey Flannel used, the ridge can clearly been seen.


Jim