As always, when you get to the stage of collecting that I'm at it isn't always easy to find new helmets, but I once again found some rare beauties circulating out there in the public.

So, for some time I was confused by certain helmets that had a little trade mark logo on the helmet.  I just assumed that those helmets were promotional giveaways, but I believe that I have solved where these helmets come from.  If my guess is accurate, these helmets that have that little trademark logo are actually from Franklin's Major League Baseball Kid's Team Set.  As I started to look at these team sets I noticed that all of them had that trademark logo located on the helmet, so I'm pretty sure it's safe to assume that is where these helmets come from.  It would also explain some of the stranger helmets out there such as the black Oakland A's and the O's helmet by the Orioles.  Another way to tell these helmets apart is that these helmets have a Franklin orange warning sticker on the back of them, unless of course the previous owner peeled it off.  So, I declare this mystery solved!        

Once again, not a real busy summer on the hunt for helmets.  I did find a couple of beauties like the Montreal helmet and the really old Astros helmet with a more square looking bill.  Other than that, nothing big here to report.  

Yup, I'm still here, and I'm definitely out there at times.  I've been kind of picky on the helmets that I've been buying lately.  There are helmets out there that I don't have, but the prices are just ridiculous for those that I believe are not that rare.  However, the ones that I have picked up have been really good purchases as those have been rare. 

The three most fascinating helmets shown below are the Cardinals, Cubs, and Brewers.  The Cardinals helmet sticks out as intriguing because it really should be on a dark blue, or better yet, a black helmet because the inside of the STL sticker is black.  As for the Cubs helmet, I've never found a correct logo/sticker on an older, harder plastic helmet like this one (It's not a Bobbie Enterprise helmet), and the Brewers helmet just has an overall strange logo, even for a Duck Billed helmet.        

As for my other purchase, they can be seen below.  

So, trying to stay true to saying that I would continue to add items to this blog, I recently got back into making helmets.  The two that I recently chose to make were a Mets and Orioles helmet.  The Mets helmet was only worn by John Olerud when he played the field, but the Orioles helmet is one that they currently wear, but I have not been able to find one that has been manufactured as souvenir helmets.    

There is really nothing major to report here.  I've been really picky about the helmets that I spend my money on lately as I've just been buying those helmets that strike my fancy, or the helmets that replace one or two that I already have in my collection.  The two that really struck my fancy were the two helmets that have real stickers on them.  I don't recall seeing helmets with real stickers like the Padres and Reds helmets below, but hell, I've been collecting since 1998 and the memory starts to go as you get older.  The other helmets shown are just routine pickups.   

    Having this blog connects me to other people who have the same passion for collecting these helmets as I do and many times I am in contact with them frequently throughout the year.  At times, I get frustrated with myself when they send me information that I missed a good auction because life becomes to busy, or more importantly, I'm just not paying close enough attention to what is out there.  Recently, I was really upset when I missed an auction for a rare Kansas City Athletics helmet.  It was like nothing that I had ever seen before.  In my frustration, I scoured the web with every damn Google search for souvenir helmets that was known to man.  Miraculously, I stumbled across a gentleman in Chicago that was recently selling his helmets on an unknown and basically unlisted website and wouldn't you know it, right there smack dab in the middle of his helmets was the same helmet I missed out on.  Yeah, needless to say I couldn't type the guy an email fast enough and he eventually responded after about three days.  Long story short, I still got the helmet that I missed out on and as a bonus I paid an 1/8th of the price that was paid for that other helmet on eBay.  Lucky me!  

    Sometimes I get lucky, like really lucky.  That would be the case for this Baltimore Orioles helmet that you see to the right.  I was surfing the web one day and stumbled upon this little beauty.  I was so excited that I immediately wrote to the gentleman and asked him if he would be willing to sell it to me?  I won't mention the price I offered, but I will mention that I sent this message before I went to school to teach and I had not heard back from him before I left.  I had almost forgotten about the helmet, but I decided to do a quick check of my email over lunch and I noticed that he had messaged me back.  I did a quick response and he agreed, but that is not where the story is interesting.  When he wrote me back he had told me that a gentleman had written to him right after he answered me email and the other person had offered him twice as much as what I had offered just five minutes after I sent me message.  That gentleman wanted to buy it because he was going to a baseball card show that weekend and he wanted to get Brooks Robinson to autograph it.  Whew!!  Thank goodness that seller sold in good conscience because I have never seen another helmet like this one.  And no, I won't tell you what I paid for it.  Some things are better to take to the grave.     ​