[aeneas1]

[bubbaramfan]

Back in 1949, Rams half-back Fred Gehrke painted horns on the Rams helmets, An absolute historical Icon. That those horns have been bastardized into something that looks nothing like the Animals horns the Ram team represents is tragic. Demoff really fucked up by not considering the history of those horns That goes for the dicknose logo too.

[aeneas1]

1948

[bubbaramfan]

1948 Fred they still had le and leather helmets and he only painted his own and a couple other players. The next year was the 1st year they came out with plastic helmets and he painted all of them. Owner Dan Reeves paid him $1,000 a helmet.

[aeneas1]

1948 Fred they still had le and leather helmets and he only painted his own and a couple other players. The next year was the 1st year they came out with plastic helmets and he painted all of them. Owner Dan Reeves paid him $1,000 a helmet.

think you have some of the rams helmet history wrong my friend....

the rams introduced their iconic helmet horns in 1948 - fred gehrke painted the horns on all of the rams leather helmets that year, for all of the rams players, a job that kept him busy throughout 1948 because he was also in charge of touching them up after games - gehrke was paid $1 per helmet not $1,000 ($1,000 was the equivalent of $12k in 1948, while the average u.s. annual income was $3.2k, so $1k per helmet would have been impossible.).

fortunately for gehrke the helmet painting was only a 1-year deal - the following year, 1949, the rams retired their leather helmets in favor of riddell's modern plastic helmets... riddell (the largest plastic football helmet manufacturer at the time) not only furnished the rams their helmets, but riddell also took over helmet horn duties, gehrke was off the hook... but rather than use gehrke's beautiful classic horn design, riddell used their own standard ram horn stencil, a stencil that they also used for some colleges and high schools, it was smaller than gehrke's design and "scalloped"... add to this, the helmets that riddell produced for the rams were red with yellow horns given the rams opted to switch colors in 1949.

that said, it seems that gehrke did paint at least one helmet in 1949, a leather helmet at that, belonging to elroy hirsch.... there are game photos from 1949 that show the entire rams team wearing riddell plastic helmets with the small, stenciled riddell horns, while hirsch is clearly wearing a leather helmet with gehrke's classic horns... iirc this was due to a head or face injury and hirsch believed that the leather helmet provided a better fit or better protection.

anyway, the next year, 1950, the rams not only ditched the red and yellow uniform scheme in favor of their classic blue and yellow colors, but they also had riddell mimic gehrke's classic horn design rather than use the riddell horn stencil that was used in 1949... and riddell did a tremendous job, an absolutely first rate job that was a) customfor the rams only and b) a tremendous pain in the ass.

[aeneas1]

Thanks!

And, after seeing so many different iterations, the Ferragamo's are STILL the best IMO. Iconic, look good, traditional and unique. There really isn't a way to improve on them.

speaking of the ferragamo's i forgot to do a mock of the dark ferragamo's, here it is...

[aeneas1]

[bubbaramfan]

I got my info from an arts website. Not surprised they go it wrong. Doesn't change the fact that such an historic change that propelled the NFL to the public was totally ignored by rams brass when designing their latest helmet.

[47 Gap]

think you have some of the rams helmet history wrong my friend....

the rams introduced their iconic helmet horns in 1948 - fred gehrke painted the horns on all of the rams leather helmets that year, for all of the rams players, a job that kept him busy throughout 1948 because he was also in charge of touching them up after games - gehrke was paid $1 per helmet not $1,000 ($1,000 was the equivalent of $12k in 1948, while the average u.s. annual income was $3.2k, so $1k per helmet would have been impossible.).

fortunately for gehrke the helmet painting was only a 1-year deal - the following year, 1949, the rams retired their leather helmets in favor of riddell's modern plastic helmets... riddell (the largest plastic football helmet manufacturer at the time) not only furnished the rams their helmets, but riddell also took over helmet horn duties, gehrke was off the hook... but rather than use gehrke's beautiful classic horn design, riddell used their own standard ram horn stencil, a stencil that they also used for some colleges and high schools, it was smaller than gehrke's design and "scalloped"... add to this, the helmets that riddell produced for the rams were red with yellow horns given the rams opted to switch colors in 1949.

that said, it seems that gehrke did paint at least one helmet in 1949, a leather helmet at that, belonging to elroy hirsch.... there are game photos from 1949 that show the entire rams team wearing riddell plastic helmets with the small, stenciled riddell horns, while hirsch is clearly wearing a leather helmet with gehrke's classic horns... iirc this was due to a head or face injury and hirsch believed that the leather helmet provided a better fit or better protection.

anyway, the next year, 1950, the rams not only ditched the red and yellow uniform scheme in favor of their classic blue and yellow colors, but they also had riddell mimic gehrke's classic horn design rather than use the riddell horn stencil that was used in 1949... and riddell did a tremendous job, an absolutely first rate job that was a) customfor the rams only and b) a tremendous pain in the ass.


fred.png

Question. The '49 helmets supplied by Riddell, with the smaller horns, were those the ones that curled above the ear holes? I've seen pictures of those and they were ridiculous.

[aeneas1]

I got my info from an arts website. Not surprised they go it wrong. Doesn't change the fact that such an historic change that propelled the NFL to the public was totally ignored by rams brass when designing their latest helmet.

preaching to the choir my friend, preaching to the choir...

thing is, the rams helmet horns that we all love, i.e. the iconic helmet horns that gehrke created in 1948, were almost snuffed out after just one season, almost snuffed out after their inaugural season - i would be very interested in knowing who actually saved the iconic horns, i mean someone obviously did.

in fact i wonder if i would even be a rams fan if someone hadn't saved gehrke's horns given that's what drew me to the rams as a child, those damn helmet horns, that conspired to create the coolest football helmets in history!

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1948 - the rams leather helmets painted by fred gehrke, the first year the rams sported horns on their helmets, and the last year the rams would wear leather helmets... wide horns that formed a "v" at the front of the helmet, with a large arcing curl and a pointed tip:

1949 - after just one season the rams ditched gehrke's beautiful horn design, said goodbye to leather helmets and began using riddell plastic helmets... riddell also took over the horn design and painting duties, using a stock in-house horn stencil for the rams 1949 helmets, a stencil that was used at the high school and college levels... this could have easily become the rams helmet horn going forward, for years, for decades:

1950 - miraculously tho, someone saw to it that gehrke's iconic horns returned to rams helmets, someone told riddell that their in-house stencils were not good enough for the los angeles rams, and that riddell would have to figure out a way to paint gehrke's horns on their plastic helmets... and riddell did just that, perfectly:

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but over the years the helmet horns have been bastardized in one way or another, for one reason or another, but mostly due to the introduction of decal horns that needed to be situated and cut in order to be replaceable without removing the facemask.