Mastro - Vintage GU Football Helmets

[aeneas01]

Re: Mastro - Vintage GU Football Helmets

jdr3: The Fischer is beautiful. There is a question about it being in Super Bowl VII, however. In 1972 his helmet had a sticker on back just to the left of the 7. Could this sticker have been easily removed?

kingjammy24: beyond the idea of the sticker being removed, the numbers in your photo are a considerable distance away from the center helmet stripes. (i'm sure i sound like an idiot there but i don't know what helmet folks call those things). on the mastro helmet, the numbers practically touch the stripes.

when i stated "...the (mastro) lot description should point out that fischer most likely wore this very lid in the 1972 super bowl" i didn't mean to imply that fischer's helmet was retired immediately after the 1972 super bowl, never to be worn again, and therefore the auction lid could be matched to super bowl game photos of fischer. in fact helmets aren't typically put on ice after a super bowl game - they are processed in the same manner as any other season including sent out for reconditioning (stripped, cleaned, repainted, etc.) and readied for the next season.

as far as fischer is concerned, he continued to sport his gladiator lid after the 1972 super bowl, through the 1974 season. as such his helmet was undoubtedly reconditioned after the super bowl and therefore couldn't be expected to match his his super bowl lid in terms of decal placement. does this make sense?

speaking of fischer's gladiator, a few more comments: a) this helmet was featured at the "helmet hut" website (top left photo) but included the back nape padding (circled) - apparently this padding has since been lost given that it's not included in the mastro auction. b) fischer's gladiator gamer was fitted with additional back chinstrap snaps (bottom right photo, circled) presumably intended for use with a four-point chinstrap. while this is pretty standard with today's defensive back helmets, it wasn't in the early 70s. anyway the auction helmet reflects these snaps, identically located when compared to photos of fischer, although the snaps are missing and only the holes remain. c) the top right photo is a nice shot of the inside of fischer's gladiator, taken during the national anthem of 1972 super bowl. d) the rear decal jdr3 referred to is very interesting and i knew i had seen such a decal before - so i dug around my photos and found it (bottom left corner), a 1972 photo of chiefs player. i very much doubt it's a reconditioning decal given that if it were you would expect to find the same sort of decal on the other helmets as well. so what is it, what does it signify? hmm...

btw, given that no mention about the super bowl was mentioned in the mastro auction, perhaps a lucky bidder can pick this up for a steal!



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[jdr3]

Re: Mastro - Vintage GU Football Helmets

Thank you! I thought the helmet looked much like the one he used in 73, but do not know how difficult it is not to scar the helmet itself when removing a sticker. One odd thing, the sticker itself looks like an add for Duke Ziebert's Restaurant, a prime Washington in the 70s. I will try to find the caricature in an old program to compare

[helmets]

Re: Mastro - Vintage GU Football Helmets

Robert:

I was wondering why it was taking you so long to post about the Mastro auctions. Now that I see your post and know how much time and research you put into it, I wonder no longer. Great post as always.

I seem to have the same sentiments as you do on most. I think you increased the auction price on some. I may have to check my piggy bank for extra funds to cover the increase due to the "Aeneas01 premium"

Being a Packer fan and from Wisconsin, I am always interested in the Packer helmets. Yes, the Hornung did have a BD9 and chinstrap when it sold on HA, but I believe in the description of that auction that the mask and chinstrap were from a later period. I recall that anyways. Perhaps the new owner removed them as they were not "original" to the helmet.

Interesting story...
My father sold insurance in Wisconsin when I was growing up. - Employers Insurance of Wausau - later Wausau Insurance Companies. He was always bringing "stuff" home to me from his customers. He brought me home a Packer gamer when I was a kid. It had the suspension cut out of the helmet, but the rivets were still there - similar to a helmet lamp. I think the Packers did that for liability. It had a number on the rear - 20's, (24? 26? ) BD9 two bar, and the shell was cracked. I remember trying to wear it and the rivets hurt my head. I wore my Packer winter hat under it for "rivet protection." I had to cut the tassle off of the hat so the helmet sat right. That didn't work too well, so my father went to a fabric store and bought some foam rubber and tried to glue it into the helmet. The glue those days wasn't very good, and each time I would try and wear it, the padding would pull off. Well Santa went to Sears later that year and bought a Rawlings Air-Flo Packers for me, and the Packers Gamer was tossed into a closet. Needless to say the gamer was sold at a rummage sale when I was away at college. I remember seeing other Packer gamers growing up at flea markets, etc, and most had the suspensions removed - cut out. I think the team cut them out - faster and easier, but the reconditioners must have drilled out the rivets like the two on Mastro.

[aeneas01]

Re: Mastro - Vintage GU Football Helmets

Thank you! I thought the helmet looked much like the one he used in 73, but do not know how difficult it is not to scar the helmet itself when removing a sticker. One odd thing, the sticker itself looks like an add for Duke Ziebert's Restaurant, a prime Washington in the 70s. I will try to find the caricature in an old program to compare

yes, i would say it's definitely the same helmet - decals can removed without scarring by reconditioners. if the sticker turns out to be an ad for that restaurant, i wonder how the same sticker on the chiefs helmet can be explained? a chain operation with a store in kansas city? fwiw players have a long history of adding personal decals to their helmets - ken "the snake" stabler sported a yellow happy face on the front of his lid, above his facemask, when with the raiders!

Today, I got an email from the guy that sold me my Cowboys helmet: He wrote, in part the following:

I worked for a company called Medalist Gladiator in Leesburg, FL. I was the Controller for the company. I'm a CPA by trade.

When helmets were sent in for reconditioning, it usually went to another division of Medalist somewhere in Pennsylvania. I don't remember their name. We got some helmets for reconditioning from time to time. If the shell was bad, it would be destroyed to avoid it being used again. It was a liability issue. Product liability was a big reason alot of companies got out of the business. The upper end helmets had removable inserts for padding. The cheaper youth helmets had glue-in padding. Any other unsued parts were usually trashed...

Jim

i would say this is very consistent with the conversations i've had with reconditioning companies in the past.

Had a question as well, I seem to remember seeing this Alzado lid in an auction a while back - did you see it and if so, do you remember what it went for?

Thanks again!

Tom

i'm pretty certain this is the first time i've seen the "alzado" helmet listed...

I just got this Tom Randall Cowboys helmet and it says a whole lot about the character of the players who played back in the day. The helmet came with this email from the seller,

Back in the late 1970's I was the controller for a football helmet manufacturer in Florida. After the Super Bowl in 1979, we received a number of helmets from the Cowboys to refurbish and send back. It was determined that the Randall helmet needed to be replaced in it's entirety. I was able to take it home as a souviner. Unfortunately, that was the only Dallas item I had. Hope this helps fill in some of the history on this helmet. Enjoy.

that helmet is a real beauty - below is a shot of randall (#60), notice the extra thick/wide bumper indicating a gladiator helmet which is consistent with your lid. and here's a photo of an absolute beauty that sold at auction for an absolute song some time ago...







rob l, both-teams-played-hard, nyjetsfan14 and the rest of you guys - thanks for the kind words!

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[jdr3]

Re: Mastro - Vintage GU Football Helmets

I noticed the Chiefs helmet had the same sticker after I wrote the previous post. There goes that theory.

[kingjammy24]

Re: Mastro - Vintage GU Football Helmets

...

on the bottom right photo, the sticker actually goes underneath the "center stripes". sort of interesting, no? mayhaps the stripes were put on after the sticker?

re: reconditioning
ok gotcha. not a concept most baseball collectors think of.

rudy.

[Nathan]

Re: Mastro - Vintage GU Football Helmets

Mr. Aeneas,

This is incredible work; it really is.

Funny that the inability to find a Pafko jersey compared to a Mantle was brought up. In hockey, I don't know that anyone has ever been able to find a Russ Romaniuk jersey from any of his various stops (and there certainly were a lot of them). A couple days ago, one of them finally popped up on eBay.

Here's his statline if you want to see how many teams he played for.

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=4647

[aeneas01]

Re: Mastro - Vintage GU Football Helmets

Robert:

I was wondering why it was taking you so long to post about the Mastro auctions. Now that I see your post and know how much time and research you put into it, I wonder no longer. Great post as always.

I seem to have the same sentiments as you do on most. I think you increased the auction price on some. I may have to check my piggy bank for extra funds to cover the increase due to the "Aeneas01 premium"

Being a Packer fan and from Wisconsin, I am always interested in the Packer helmets. Yes, the Hornung did have a BD9 and chinstrap when it sold on HA, but I believe in the description of that auction that the mask and chinstrap were from a later period. I recall that anyways. Perhaps the new owner removed them as they were not "original" to the helmet.

Interesting story...
My father sold insurance in Wisconsin when I was growing up. - Employers Insurance of Wausau - later Wausau Insurance Companies. He was always bringing "stuff" home to me from his customers. He brought me home a Packer gamer when I was a kid. It had the suspension cut out of the helmet, but the rivets were still there - similar to a helmet lamp. I think the Packers did that for liability. It had a number on the rear - 20's, (24? 26? ) BD9 two bar, and the shell was cracked. I remember trying to wear it and the rivets hurt my head. I wore my Packer winter hat under it for "rivet protection." I had to cut the tassle off of the hat so the helmet sat right. That didn't work too well, so my father went to a fabric store and bought some foam rubber and tried to glue it into the helmet. The glue those days wasn't very good, and each time I would try and wear it, the padding would pull off. Well Santa went to Sears later that year and bought a Rawlings Air-Flo Packers for me, and the Packers Gamer was tossed into a closet. Needless to say the gamer was sold at a rummage sale when I was away at college. I remember seeing other Packer gamers growing up at flea markets, etc, and most had the suspensions removed - cut out. I think the team cut them out - faster and easier, but the reconditioners must have drilled out the rivets like the two on Mastro.

great story! i would imagine that the rawlings store model packers lid was indeed quite a bit more comfortable than the gamer with protruding interior rivets! although i'm not quite sure how an equipment manager would go about cutting out a suspension unit while leaving the rivets cleanly intact, like a helmet lamp! i would think that if the team wanted to render a helmet useless for liability purposes, the easiest way would be to simply cut the suspension unit in half a dozen places around the crown support and be done with it. but, hey, odder things have taken place in equipment rooms!

so what do think about the "enhancing" of the rear numbers on those packers helmets?

speaking of flea markets, what a potential treasure trove! i have a few vintage helmets that were picked up at an east coast flea market almost 30 years ago - two belonged to a couple of hall of famers, no doubt about it. i'd rather not say much more about them - i made that mistake a couple of years ago and was bugged to no end, and i mean no end, by a couple of auction houses.

as a packers fan do you happen to know if nitschke ever wore a rawlings? i don't think so. nor did butkus as far as i can tell. but the hall of fame has nitschke and butkus gamers on display - both rawlings. speaking of the hall - great people. their researchers and archivists are tremendously helpful and more than willing to help you research anything if you are inclined to pay them a personal visit. i was told that access to their "vault", where they keep 95% of their inventory, is also available by appointment. yet having said that, their off the cuff knowledge can be somewhat lacking. for example, get this, i noticed they had the helmet bruce smith wore in the 1990 super bowl on display. interesting, eh? but guess what? it was riddell vsr4. i told their researcher that it wasn't smith's lid, that he wore a schutt, and that this fact could be easily verified. i was told that they would check it out although he was pretty certain it was smith's sb helmet because it had an american flag decal on the back just like smith's super bowl lid. mama mia! fwiw it appears that they did remove it!

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[helmets]

Re: Mastro - Vintage GU Football Helmets

Yes, "enhancing." There were a few other things on some of the helmets that were enhanced. Some of the masks on some of the helmets - to me, - IMO, have been "enhanced." In fact it looks like some of them have are hh repros, that have been "enhanced" to look original. If you look at the photos of the helmets where it shows the interior, and you look at the masks, they look very similar to the reproduction masks. I know you like the Pugh helmet, but that mask...look at the shape, look at how it shines, look at the color, look at the runs in the coating, and lastly... the helmet is "absolutely destroyed" but the mask does not have a mark on it.

Is it just me, or are Pat Fischer's numbers - new? They are very white compared to the stripes. Very white for almost 40 years old.

Why is it every GB Husky belonged to Davis? The shape of the side decals - compared to other Packer gamers. They look like the two pc reproduction decals that I have...

I don't think Nitschke ever wore a Rawlings. I could be wrong.

The Aneneas premium has really taken effect on the Atkins. I probably don't stand a chance on that one - 14 proxy bids already.

[helmets]

Re: Mastro - Vintage GU Football Helmets

Yes, one Proxy on the Atkins was $1900, so that is where the bidding started. Anyone here bid on it?

Anyone here buy any of the helmets? Roger, I know you had to have bid on some...

The Hornung went for 3500 I believe. I was on the phone waiting for the Pitts to go and was trying to listen to the auctioneer. That's a far cry from the 10,700 that it brought in May 2007 from Heritage.

[RKGIBSON]

Re: Mastro - Vintage GU Football Helmets

Helmets,

I did want the Adkin's helmet. It was #1 on my list.. Doug Adkin's lives close to a friend of mine in Humbolt TN. We spoke to him about the helmet. He sold it to a local sports dealer in 1999. He said it was the only helmet he was able to keep from his career. He is a great gentleman and I have looked for something of his for several years. My proxy was $1800.00. I would like to own this helmet if it ever comes up for sale or if the new owner wants to turn it for a quick buck.

I just screwed up and was not able to bid today. I called and the said they could not figure how to let me bid today. ??? If the numbers are right on the web, I did get six jerseys.

In my opinion this was a big loser for the owner of these items. To have a live auction on Monday was a joke. To not be able to bid from the internet was a joke. They cost their customer, and their self, thousands of dollars.

Roger

[aeneas01]

Re: Mastro - Vintage GU Football Helmets

Helmets,

I did want the Adkin's helmet. It was #1 on my list.. Doug Adkin's lives close to a friend of mine in Humbolt TN. We spoke to him about the helmet. He sold it to a local sports dealer in 1999. He said it was the only helmet he was able to keep from his career. He is a great gentleman and I have looked for something of his for several years. My proxy was $1800.00. I would like to own this helmet if it ever comes up for sale or if the new owner wants to turn it for a quick buck.

I just screwed up and was not able to bid today. I called and the said they could not figure how to let me bid today. ??? If the numbers are right on the web, I did get six jerseys.

In my opinion this was a big loser for the owner of these items. To have a live auction on Monday was a joke. To not be able to bid from the internet was a joke. They cost their customer, and their self, thousands of dollars.

Roger

great info on atkins - that lid is a beauty. it's hit the blocks before and will probably hit the blocks again - but i'm not sure it will ever go for less. btw it looks like you and i had the same problems when trying to register for the "live" auction. what a disater of a format that auction was!

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[gridman80]

Re: Mastro - Vintage GU Football Helmets

Robert
This is the best information that this forum can possibly offer. You have cut the supply of "game worn helmets" in half. What's wrong with common players? These guys need to realize that every helmet doesn't need to be a Namath or Unitas.
Thanks for your time and energy!

P.S. I know a guy in San Diego, who saw a Unitas Chargers helmet at a flea market in the mid 70s. He was 10 years old and obviously couldn't afford it. It was $100 and could very well be the same one as the one you posted...

I was offered the Unitas chargers helmet 12 years ago at $2000 and passed...not a goldmine but better than the stock market. Great work Aeneas

[aeneas01]

Re: Mastro - Vintage GU Football Helmets

I was offered the Unitas chargers helmet 12 years ago at $2000 and passed...not a goldmine but better than the stock market. Great work Aeneas

although the unitas bolts helmet appeared to be interesting, i would take one of the many gems in your collection over it any day of the week!

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[genius]

Re: Mastro - Vintage GU Football Helmets

The Lamonica Pro Bowl lid at the start of this thread just made an appearance on the Pro Bowl broadcast, great archive footage of he and John Madden at the 71 Pro Bowl.