yoseff777 - there's also a great circa 1974 getty image that shows the inside of bradshaw's hnd9 with the evenly spaced crown pad attachments which accounts for the aligned screws! as far as campbell is concerned, i took another look and he defintey did wear an rts for one year, the last year he wore a rawlings - he wore it with a red dw-nopo. as far as i can tell that's the only year he wore it and as such never wore it with a gray nopo. here's what i found:

1978 - riddell - gray nopo
1979 - rawlings hnd9 - gray nopo
1980 - rawlings hnd9 - gray nopo dw
1981 - rawlings hnd9 - red nopo
1982 - rawlings rts - red nopo dw
1983 - riddell - red usfl
1984 - riddell - red usfl

photo on the left is from 1979, photo on the right from 1980. in 1981 the oilers switched to red facemasks....



can't believe you brought up the rawlings csh - one of my alltime favorite lids! did you happen to see the beauty that sold on ebay for $400+ a year or two ago? here it is...



richard todd definitely wore a ridge...




Quote Originally Posted by kirkb View Post
Both of my WD 1's have the blue inner shell. Blades was recertified 1991 and Crocket 1990. Both look like gamers, especially the Crockett. Blades has the flag worn by Lions in '90. I'd say these 2 helmets prove the point the helmets had blue interior shells. Bought off ebay if my memory's right...
although you have two lions helmets with blue shells, unfortunately it doesn't settle the matter imo. as most football helmet collectors know, anything is possible of course - however i'm not aware of any collector that has obtained an authentic lions helmet from a solid source that consisted of a blue shell painted silver. add to this the dozens and dozens of closeup game photos available that do not show a) a blue shell exposed by hit marks, scrapes and/or paint chipping b) a blue shell exposed by inconsistent spraying around the helmet's edges c) a blue shell visible in shots of the helmet's interior. i can't help but wonder if these blue shell helmets aren't part of the old proline models...

as far as the gary danielson helmet is concerned, imo there's little doubt that it's a reproduction. danielson stopped wearing a suspension helmet (and i don't think he ever wore a gladiator suspension helmet) long before the lions switched to blue facemasks, and he never wore a blue dungard if i remember correctly (although he did wear that style in gray). further, it's another dark colored helmet painted silver - i believe it was originally navy or black... and of course the oversized decal is a big problem.

the blades helmet strikes me as problematic as well. the paint job appears suspect and the lions decal, with the exaggerated (extra wide) transparent border, was only used in 1986 as far as i can tell (but your decal even varies from those odd, short-lived 1986 decals) and therefore doesn't really jive with the 1990 memorial flag.

your vintage lions helmet sold at auction as a circa 1953-1954 game used lions helmet (attributed to earl girard). it appears to be an early macgregor - however there were other macgregor models (and wilson and rawlings models) out at the time which provided better padding and/or sturdier suspension units. in short, i'm not sure this particular model was used at the pro level - at least i'm not as certain as i am about the other models. also i have never seen a vintage photo of a lions player sporting that type of facemask - here are some vintage photos of that era showing the style the lions wore which is similar to your helmet - but not the same...



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