#mislabel

This mug is nuts!

As Seen Here (but the image captured off-line in case...)

Oops. No it isn’t. If someone uses this stock photo as-labelled, they’re likely to get more feedback than they expect.

Yes, it looks like the German M16/18 Stahlhelm, and a Rolls-Royce looks like a Bentley - similar, but not the same (older cars were even more alike). Their badges are different, too.

See that badge on the front of the helmet? It’s this one:

Óglaig(h) na hÉireann means “Warriors of Ireland”, more commonly “Irish Defence Forces”. Even if the badge isn’t in place, its little bracket is a definite “not a German helmet” giveaway.

To make things even more skewed, the M27 / Model 1927 helmet, AKA “the Vickers”, was made in the UK, well after WWI ended, by the manufacturer of a famous machine-gun. So here are Irish soldiers wearing their British Vickers while firing their British Vickers.

Theses helmets are rare. Only about 10,000 were made, they were taken out of service in 1939 to avoid the risk of cross-border “mistaken identity” incidents, some were reissued to Civil Defence - and in the 1970s at least 50% of all remaining stock was bulldozed into the foundations of a new Army barracks.

This is something which still baffles militaria collectors when it’s not making them cry into their beer. Why was it done? Does a layer of slowly rusting metal make foundations more stable?