Bill Kelley Cleveland Browns Style 100MH Clear Shell Custom Display Helmet. The helmet was created by a collector years ago by taking an existing Kelley 100MH clear shell and stripping it down to create the Browns helmet.  Kelley took over the popular MacGregor helmet line, with his helmets virtually identical to the clear shell MacGregor 100MH model helmets.  This helmet is in excellent/pristine, museum quality condition, with great wear on the exterior, an excellent original interior, a very rare model reproduction mask, and the included orginal Kelley chinstrap.  

Clear shell football helmets have been around for more than 80 years.  It seems that every major football helmet manufacturer has produced clear shell helmets at one time or another.  Today, they are rare, highly collectible and bring top dollar with serious collectors. The clear shell helmet has the logos, size/brand labels, striping, and paint - under the shell - unlike conventional helmets with the exterior painted and decals/striping applied over the exterior paint.  The idea was that the paint and any logos and/or striping would be protected by the shell, keeping the helmet paint and logos in undamaged conditon from game wear.  

The period of these helmets that is most desired by collectors is the mid 1960's through the mid 1980's, due to the logos used and "displayed" under the helmet shells. NFL teams and college teams alike used the 100MH model helmets, with superstars of both preferring to wear them due to the fully padded interiors.  These helmets were, and are today, a bit brittle and prone to cracking - especially at the facemask mounts, and at the rivets where the suspension padding was installed.  This helmet is an exception.  The helmet has no cracking at any of the facemask mounts with very minor spider cracking at the suspension rivets.  Yes as far as cracking, this helmet is a rarity - it is near perfect. 

This beautiful helmet is complete including the chinstrap.  The helmet itself is an original Kelley clear shell, with of course reproduced striping and custom professionally painted.  The padding is original, complete including the jaw pads, and in perfect/mint condition with no visible wear or issues.  The famous Brown's striping is perfect and colorful, properly positioned with no issues.  The helmet is a mammouth size 7 3/4 which is very uncommon, rare, and desired in the collectors market.  The facemask is a reproducton Schutt JOP-DW in the XL/Green Dot size, with no wear.  The exterior shell exhibits great wear with deep gouges and scratches as shown in our photo below, adding to the display appearance of the helmet.  Finally, there is a factory label, on the inside above the earhole.  . 

A great, beautiful reproduced Kelley clear shell - maticulously created, perfect paint, great exterior wear, rare model reproduction mask, original chinstrap, perfect padding, no cracking, and in a monsterous size 7 3/4.  As one helmet expert claimed - "...the custom reproductions were nicer than the originals due to the care and time it took to make it perfect."  This one is no exception as it is nicer than when it left the Kelley factory more than 45 years ago.  Bill would be proud. Don't wait on this one.