Custom Made 49ers Helmet History Folk Art Display

Custom Folk Art 49ers Helmet Display (w/o SF Logo on Gray Helmet)

49ers Helmet Display with 1960's Gray Helmet and newly added SF Logo

I've always loved the look of all the different 49er helmets through the history of the team.  Those who aren't familiar with the 49ers uniform changes since their inception...well, they'll be getting a slight 49er helmet history lesson when they look at a few of the helmets I made into a custom built 49ers Helmet History folk art hanging piece.

This display idea came from a piece of art that used to hang in a Sports Media production house in LA.  As I was walking down the stairs to a production mixing room, I overheard management discussing taking down and trashing of a custom art display of 5 yellow painted helmets halves with matching yellow lineman face guards that was mounted on the stairs landing.  The helmets were hung on a 15"x 7' piece of matte black painted wood and hung in the stairwell.  I mentioned that if they were thinking of getting rid of the art, I would gladly take it off their hands and gave them my number to contact me.  2 weeks later, I was asked to pickup the Helmet display.  Doesn't hurt to ask.

The art display sat in my garage for 2-3 years, but this past spring I found all the helmets and the board that they were initially mounted on and I began my little project of making an abbreviated helmet history of the 49ers.

First, I took all the hardware off and painted each with a primmer coat and then 2 coats of Gloss Black.  I read that gloss black would bring out the vibrancy of metallic colors like the Silver and Gold helmets. The solid colored White and Red helmets were my first.

Red Painted Helmet

 First 2 coats of Red and a Gloss Black helmet waiting to be painted white.

2 coats of White

Once those helmets were drying, I painted the remaining 4 helmets in high gloss black for my metallic Silver and Gold helmets. The original art display had 5 helmets on it, but I had an older helmet from the 50's and I felt it would be worth my while to add it to the collection, even though it has a slight squareness to the top of the helmet, but it was authentic to the 50's.

4 Helmets - 2 coats of High Gloss Black

I loved the all Black helmets but, they needed to be painted with the Gold and Silver and the brilliance was stunning with just the first coat.

After the 2nd or 3rd coat on each helmet, I began mounting recently received single and double bar face masks. Unfortunately, I realized after mounting a single bar on the Red helmet, that back in early 50's they only had chin straps (to be added later).

Mounted face mask

Mounting face masks

3 various mounted face masks

Then I had to cut each face mask in half to fit onto the display.

Dates and Styles

The specific dates and styles of helmets that I was going to recreate was carefully decided as I went through the entire history of the 49ers uniforms and helmets.  I didn't go with years that they were wearing leather helmets, but I wanted helmets that added to the color and flair of the periods they represented. So, with over 12 helmet changes throughout the 49ers 70 years as a team, I decided on six specific helmet styles.

1953-55

1956-57

1958-59

1960-62 Without SF Logo

NEW - 1962-1963 With SF Logo

1968-1988

1996-2008

Before they were mounted and final stripe tape was added to a few,  I shot a distant picture of what they would look like with little metal plates that I had made with the dates and details.

Now, the completed 7 foot display in it's near complete state, hangs in my family room, thanks to an understanding wife.  I'm waiting for the Non-Outlined SF Logo for the silver 1960-63 Helmet which was the first time the SF Logo was used on the teams helmets.  Oddly enough the White and Silver colors were used several times in the 49ers uniform history.  In the leather helmet days, both White and Silver were worn. Then the first hard shell helmets were painted Silver in 1950-53 seasons.  I'm a big fan of the Gold primarily because I first watched when they were wearing the Gold with the SF non-outlined logo style helmets in 1968, similar to the 62-63 Gray helmet with the non-outlined logo style helmet.

Closeup of 1st group of 3 Helmets on Display

Closeup of 2nd group of 3 Helmets on Display

This project is about 98% complete, and will be a work in progress for a while, halved chin straps, small NFL labels on the newer styled helmets, etc.  But, I'm so proud of finally finishing a majority of this 49ers history project.  Enjoy, like I'm enjoying every time I look over my TV.

Go Niners ! ! !