Posted 10 years ago
kozowy1967
(25 items)
I have been on the hunt for some time now for a unmolested Canadian produced example to add to my shelf so I was quite pleased when a fellow collector contacted me a couple of weeks back in regards to this 1944 dated HCDR it appears to be in unissued condition with just a few small scuff marks on the exterior of the helmet body it is in a nice large size of 7 3/4 and the liner is marked with the BS logo (Backstay Standards ) and it bares the C-/l\ inc stamp in the dome.
Its Canadian war time designation number was A15500 (Helmet Crash Motor Cyclist Plastic ) it is thought that the contract was awarded for only 4000 examples of this particular HCDR in 1944 so they are quite hard to source .
The CMHQ could not find a Canadian manufacturer willing to produce them in the early war years they were either drawn from British stores and or purchased privately from companies such as Helmets Ltd, and in April of 1940, they ordered I believe 750 examples as best I can tell they also purchased helmets from Spalding Sporting Goods in 1942 and must have acquired some from the Sponge Rubber Company and Dunlop as well as I have seen a couple of examples that were manufacturered from these producers as well over the years.
I know there were subsequent orders planned for 12,000 more HCDR's to be produced by Backstay Standards at 6,000 units a year for 1945-1946
I did come upon another example with 1943 dated leather and so after further discussion with a friend and fellow collector here in Canada he feels that this example is possibly a trials variation and he is under the opinion that 1944 was the only year that these were produced as the war was winding down in the ETO the 1945-1946 orders were never realized
Regards Mark