Original Riddell 1970 Houston Oilers Kra-Lite TK2 Game Football Helmet

Vintage and original Houston Oilers Riddell Kra-Lite TK2 helmet from 1970 as shown by the “Riddell” and “Kra-Lite” stamped through the red tape and into the rear of the helmet and the date stamp in front of the earhole. This is a legitimate NFL game helmet, although not used in a game. Please read further.

Riddell helmet lamps were manufactured between 1969 and 1973, and used actual game helmets which were manufactured by Riddell for the NFL teams. These lamps were available by mail order through The Sears Wishbook.

RIDDell helmet lamps were not manufactured until ordered. When ordered, RIDDell simply removed the suspension padding from the helmet and replaced the rivets before assembling the helmet into a lamp to ship out.

The decals and striping on this helmet are vintage and original team issued, but you will notice the remnants of a Cowboys “star” decal on both sides under the Oilers Derrick decals. Normally, the decals were applied by Riddell when the helmet was manufactured. In this case, the Oilers side decals were removed and replaced By Cowboys stars to make a Cowboys helmet. The evidence of this transformation is the “Riddell” and “Kra-Lite” heat stamping is burned through the red tape, so we know that Oilers was the original team.

Then they also covered the original red tape with Cowboys blue tape, and the Columbia blue center stripe with white to complete the transformation and ship out a Cowboys helmet lamp. Please see the last three photos for the helmet as a Cowboys before we transformed it back to Oilers.

While we don’t know for sure why this change was made we can only reason that an order came in for a Cowboys helmet and the company didn’t have one available so they converted the Oilers helmet to a Cowboys helmet since they both used the same bluish -silver paint.

As the Cowboys stars were slightly peeling we decided to return this helmet to its original team, while keeping the original vintage paint. We had the star decals removed and lightly buffed out the remaining glue from the paint which is vintage and original from the date of manufacture. We then added appropriate vintage team issued Oilers decals we had obtained previously.

To complete the work of creating as close to an original Oilers game used helmet as possible, we then removed an original and vintage suspension from a helmet of the same vintage and had it installed by the best in the business, Helmet Hut.

Please see photos for condition for this more than 50 year old helmet.

Helmet also includes the most popular facemask ever produced, a vintage and original Riddell 2-bar BD9 facemask. This amazing specimen also includes vintage leather jaw pads just as used on the field.

This is about as close to an authentic Oilers game used helmet from 1970 as you will find for a fraction of the price! Oilers helmets were also one of the most rare of the helmets used to make lamps.

We have many of these helmets which have had a suspension installed as well. Also, please note we can add numbers and change out facemasks if you desire. Please request pricing for this service.

Will make a stunning display, and the helmet looks like it is ready to take the field!

All of our helmets are for display purposes only! They are not to be used or worn for competitive play.

Westbrook Sportscards has been in business since 1988.