Tom Benjey's Weblog

We returned from Tanzania (more on that later) to an email asking me if I knew anything about a black and white leather football helmet claimed to have been from Carlisle Indian School that is currently up for sale on eBay: http://cgi.ebay.com/Carlisle-PA-Indian-School-Old-Leather-Football-Helmet_W0QQitemZ380043129493QQihZ025QQcategoryZ150029QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting

I don’t know anything about the helmet but thought I had seen something like it in some old photos of Lone Star Dietz’s teams later on, possibly in the 1920s. So, I did some quick searches and found a similar helmet in a different color scheme listed on another site: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.mearsonline.com/images/forsale/thumbs/Flat%2520top%2520helmet%2520front%2520feb%252022.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.mearsonline.com/forsale/results/%3Fcat%3D8%26subcat%3D70&h=139&w=113&sz=4&hl=en&start=98&um=1&tbnid=AHtbVxdr1iubbM:&tbnh=93&tbnw=76&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dgoldsmith%2Bhelmet%26start%3D80%26ndsp%3D20%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1G1GGLQ_ENUS264%26sa%3DN

That site identifies the Goldsmith model 67 as a government-issue helmet used during WWII. Was it used for football? I think so. Was it also used in army tanks? Probably. Was it used by the Carlisle Indians? Probably not. Was it used by an army unit assigned later to Carlisle Barracks? Possibly. What is it worth? Something, surely, but I don’t have a clue to how much.

I’d like to hear from some sports equipment specialists to learn more.

Tags: football helmet, Goldsmith, Goldsmith helmet, Goldsmith model 67, leather helmet

This entry was posted on July 9, 2008 at 2:26 pm and is filed under Carlisle Indian School, Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.