The Armour Archive

Hello everyone.

I'm just getting back into the SCA after an absence of a couple of years. I used to fight in good ol' ugly sports armor, and real mongrel beginner's kit. I'm looking to upgrade that a bit now, and as part of that, i'm looking for a new helm.

I currently have Ashcraft Baker's simplest helm, which has served me well but is huge on me (I have 3 layers of bed roll as padding in it), and not exactly stylish. The main things I like about it are the excellent peripheral vision and the basic rounded top (not flat, but not pointed).

I'm not exactly sure what my head side is, but I'll find out and update this later. I'm a very average sized guy though, usually in the medium range. I'm pretty sure my Ashcraft was his large size.

I'm looking to find a nice balance between form, fit, function, and cost here. If you have anything you think i'll be interested in, please post me some pictures or e-mail sdorman22@gmail.com

In the mean time, imma browsing shops, and trying to figure out what style of helmet fits my persona and looks cool to me.


Edit: Forget to mention that my new kit will likely be Lamellar, Bausabonds, and hidden legs, and my persona is a bit of a journeyman, so the style of helmet should be fairly easy to match up. I'm certainly open to suggestions

Well, Ashcraft has a very large variety of helms these days. Some are exclusive to their ebay account though, so you may want to check both if you want another of their helms. (And it does sound like your helm is a large. A medium will probably fit fine, I know my does).
their site: http://www.ashcraftbaker.com/pricelist%20web.htm
ebay: http://stores.shop.ebay.com/ashcraftbak ... QQ_armrsZ1

As far as the style goes, I know you want the open periphery of a bargrilled helm, say bassinet or nassal or something like that.So I guess if you can tell us what period and culture (if any) you are going for that would helm narrow it down a bit.

You could always check out Hjalmr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/21215018@N07/

Noting your description of armour, you are likely going for something more eastern, whether Russo-Germanic or Arabic, correct?

Oh, and welcome to the archive!
May your armour protect your soft parts!

And this is Zweihammer helm kit. cost $105+$20ish shipping. I just got one myself.

[Edit: simplified my "persona"]

My person is Randulf of Wolverhampton, from sometime around the crusades, who's family could have been from anywhere at this point. I'm still trying to fill in the fuzzy details around my armor and the people i'll be hanging out with.

I'm very open to suggestions as to what helmets would look good, and appropriate, with that lamellar (I won't be wearing the rest of that rig, just the body armor).

Well, you could do crusader I believe at around 1200. The reason I say crusader is that Otto of Otto's armoury is having a 50% off sale right now.
http://www.ottosarmoury.com/
He has several crusader-esque styles to choose from. You could easily say your persona took the lammelar from a Muslim defender of the Holy Land.

I think you'll like the spangen that he has.
Edit: added pic

I've e-mailed Otto do discuss that avenue.

I'm still open to more suggestions as I try to figure out what I'm going to do though!

Thanks for the quick replies and good help Swete.

RandulfofWolves wrote:I've e-mailed Otto do discuss that avenue.

I'm still open to more suggestions as I try to figure out what I'm going to do though!

Thanks for the quick replies and good help Swete.

Not a problem!

Email jackie from www.shamrockarmoury.com

seriously, the guy rocks.

Randulf, where do you live? I look at your kit and all I can think is "OUCH! OUCH! OUCH! OUCH! OUCH! OUCH!"

http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=73509&highlight=assassin
But in all seriousness. I think journey man would be more suited to spangen. also IMHO matches quite well with the lamellar in terms of appearance. not sure about correct period.

Thank you for the replies...

I've been contact with a few people now and I think i'll be getting a Spangen built to go with my new kit. Hopefully i'll see some of you through the grill of it in the future

oh and that's not my kit, just the lamellar being worn by the person i'm buying it from, he's a kidney-belt only fighter now. i've taken the picture down for now to remove that confusion.