72 - Prussia, officer's helmet eagle for the Pickelhaube, crowned line eagle with sceptre and orb

Prussia, officer's helmet eagle for the Pickelhaube, crowned line eagle with sceptre and orb Base metal, gilt, embossed. Helmet eagle for the Prussian officer's Pickelhaube, late model, crowned line eagle with raised wings, holding in its talons a sceptre with eagle finial and an orb with cross, on the breast a shield with the initials "FR", across wings and breast a motto ribbon "MIT GOTT FÜR KOENIG UND VATERLAND", tail feathers with ornamental openwork. Gilding worn, screw fittings on the reverse soldered, in good condition commensurate with age, with patina. 11.5x13.3 cm (HxW), weight 32 g. The crowned line eagle with sceptre and orb was the heraldic emblem of the Prussian line regiments and was mounted as a helmet plate, also called helmet fitting, on the front of the Pickelhaube, among others in the infantry. The royal monogram on these eagles stands for Fridericus Rex. The Pickelhaube, a helmet of pressed leather with metal fittings and a mounted spike, was introduced into the Prussian army in 1842 by King Frederick William IV and later adopted by the troops of other German states. In the First World War the pressed leather offered no reliable protection against shell fragments, so that the helmet was militarily obsolete; as a symbol of Prussia, however, the Pickelhaube remained well known.