The shallow water helmet as a collector’s item.

The development of the diving helmet began approximately 1823. Around that time, John and Charles Deane were the first to enter the water with a self-developed helmet. They were quit successful and the British Admiralty followed their movements with great interest. Later, the Admiralty promoted the development of a safe and usable diving suit. Several people presented their diving gear and one of them was Augustus Seibe.

The diving suit he developed became the standard within the British Navy. Augustus patented his diving suit at 1837 and became the most important manufacturer.
During the history we see that many other manufacturers copied the Augustus Siebe diving system. In this way a large variety of helmets were build of which the British Seibe Gorman and the American MK V are the best known. Unfortunately, there are not many of those very old helmets left. Reason is that many helmets were shredded for the price of the copper. At those days that was common, now we would call that desecration…

Roughly you can divide two different sorts of diving helmets: the usual (deep sea) diving helmet and the shallow water helmet.


 

British Siebe Gorman “ Diving helmet”

American Miller Dunn "shallow water helmet"

A shallow water helmet diver doesn’t wear a suit. The helmet is worn on the shoulders and if the diver bends over, air will leave at the back and water will enter at the front. This means that the shallow water helmet has its limitations. These helmets were mostly used in warm, clear and shallow waters around the US.
The shallow water helmets were developed during the 1900’s. The first were made of cast iron or from thin copper, with lead weights added to get negative buoyancy. Examples are: Snead, Miller Dunn, Desco, Morse Schrader, Hammond and Griswold. (Now, Dutch Diving Helmets can be added….)
 

Last named helmets were developed during the 1970’s and collectors own all his helmets these days. Not so long ago the shell of a Griswold helmet was sold for 5000 dollar! This helmet was incomplete so this shows the collectors value. Also other shallow water helmets, like Miller Dunn and Snead are sold for the same price.

In the lights of these statistics we can suggest that a Dutch Diving Helmets shallow water helmet will also rise in price in a few years time. So it might be a good idea, in this time of economic decline, to sell your shares and buy a Dutch Diving Helmet!

An article from the Historical Diving Times (issue 34, page 55) states: “” what’s surely going to become a collector’s item possibly now and definitely in the future””. What better compliment could we have…?