Fresh out of the woodwork from Nashvillle, TN never at a military show or seen publicly before now just as one likes to find them. From 20 feet away it looks like some amateur sloppily brushed on some muted camo paint at an attempt to add some eye appeal. But once you have this in hand and can see the age of the camo, random wear patterns and rust bleed through in areas you know this is in fact the real deal!!! Hopefully the photos are clear enough so that they will leave no doubt.
This helmet is the early pre-war version with a 1937 dated non-reinforced aluminum square bale liner band so a lot less common than later war M42 versions. It first left the NS factory in 1937 as a double decal Heer helmet with pea green smooth paint both on the inside and outside. Then at some point during the war most likely around 1940-41 enough of the original factory pea green paint had been abraded that the solider or his NCO decided it was time for a war time face lift and the helmet was most likely sent to a field depot to be re-issued. The field depot then painted on a layer of dark feld grau textured matte finish paint and then added a fresh HJ&K Heer decal painting over both the original national shield and C.A. Pocher decal that first left the NS factory. Then at some point when the Allied invasion was deemed to be imminent around 1943 on wards the solider and most likely his entire company was instructed to add some field camouflage for better front line concealment. The solider himself or perhaps one soldier for the entire company then took some dried out raggedly paint brushes and used whatever local or issued paints they would find to make this very impressive crude broke stroke pattern in a pale reddish brown and a sage green two tone colors being careful to delicately paint around the Heer decal. Most camo paints just have the decal painted right over so this is a very nice example where you can see how the soldier took price in his national symbols and wanted to maintain them on display throughout the duration of the war. Perhaps more likely his feld webel (Sargent) told him not to touch the decal with any paint.
A wonderful find and fresh out of the woodwork!!!
SOLD - Jens "The Man"
