Houston Astros Helmet

[stepback_antiques]

While looking through a local antiques store today, I found a Houston Astros batting helmet among some military items. At first I thought it was a plastic replica helmet. It was a flapless American Baseball Cap helmet, dark navy blue in color, with the small pro-celd sticker, and an American Baseball Cap sticker which I have never seen before which was about 1 1/4"x 1 1/4" in size. The sticker read:
American Baseball Cap
Covered by all of the following
U.S Patent Nos
Other patents pending
7 1/4
Made in USA
Media Penna ________

The bill of the helmet has:
American Baseball Cap
Media Penna
U.S. Pat No. 2558434
No. 2295855
L
There are seveal patent numbers on the sticker, but I could not read them because I did not have my glasses. There was also a zip code which I could not read. Zip codes started in 1963.The helmet is well used.The interior has the brown leather sweatband padding,and a brown circular pad at the top of the helmet.There is a #12 in blue Dymo tape on the rear of the helmet. Doug Rader was #12, and did not use a flap on his helmet.Nate Colbert was also #12 in 1966. It is certainly the earliest helmet I have found. The logo is the orange star with the white H superimposed on the star. The only problem is that the logo is painted on.The paint is old and worn, and looks like it was done professionally.I would like to know if Houston or any other teams had their logos painted on instead of a decal.For the price of $23.00 I bought it. Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[yanks12025]

Got any photos?