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1940 S.B.S. Helmet ?


C Cooper

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Found a british 1940 helmet in a local antique shop with the letters S.B.S on it in white paint, helmet colour is a dark greyish. Looks original. Any ideas as to provenence please? Not sure how to post a photo

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Edited by C Cooper
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I've seen a lot of Home Front helmets...but never seen an "S.B.S."  ."S.B." is usually Stretcher Bearer..but my gut feel is that this is probably a Factory helmet (who's company initials are SBS) or possibly a post war over-paint. Hundreds, if not thousands of Companies / businesses provided their staff with helmets and they were permitted to mark them with their Service Lettering (if one of them was part of their Rescue team that would mean an "R") and the Company initials or even a logo...those who weren't part of the Industrial ARP Team had just the Company mark...like the pic here. Whilst the vast majority of "Factory" helmets are visually unimpressive (no stripes, diamonds, white etc) they can be rarer than some of the most senior ranked Wardens, Police etc helmets especially if it was a relatively small Company.....the trouble is that a lot of the company's involved are no longer in business or have become parts of larger ones and lost their war time identity.

There is a possibility that "SBS" were the initials for a Service (unofficial) or role that I've not come across....and I can guarantee you that "experts" will tell you with confidence that it's "Special Boat Squadron", or "Scottish Bomb Section", or "Senior Blackout Supervisor", or "Special Bomb Squad", or "Southbourne Bus Supervisor" etc etc

Your best bet is to hope that it originated locally (re the shop) and have a dig around for local companies with those initials.

So, to conclude (assuming anyone's still reading this!)..it's either a Factory helmet (in great nick by the way), an unknown role (which "experts" will tell you about) or a post-war prank for a retirement party or similar. My money's on the Factory lid.

h CD grey w LCS.JPG

Edited by 2 Black Bands
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