DESCRIPTION
Here is one of those vintage paratrooper helmets that normally gets passed around the public auction sites as the real deal and creates a sort of hot potato effect whereby the last guy is always trying to unload it on to the next guy because he overpaid for it. In this case we know what is actually being sold here. A very, very high end museum quality European pressed M38 CKL71 Fallschirmjager helmet with the correct stamps, gauge of steel, shape and even the overall weight of roughly 1.55 kg (54.7 oz) for the shell are all spot on to known originals. As mentioned above this is an old vintage reproduction that has that nice musty, old engine odor to it much like grandpa's garage.
If you look at the side profile you will see that nice even angle where the side edge first starts to break upwards toward the front brow with a gentle enough slope that it almost appears to be flat bottomed. The reproduction Chinese junk and recently made better quality expensive UK reproductions fail to get this angle right as the edge break is far too abrupt and the shell height is not accurate. I believe this helmet may have been created by FJ Werkes about 20 years ago or that 1990's Czech company I cannot recall the name of that copied original shells using an authentic modified German helmet press. Both of these European based firms stopped making paratrooper helmets many years ago and most of what they have created has been passed off as the real deal for several decades now. And so they have become a commodity unto themselves much like an out of print book that is still in demand.
The inside liner has darkened over time and made from goatskin having both the correct factory ink stampings and end over end stitch pattern. The chinstrap is nicely aged and is the late war friction style buckle. Basically a museum quality replica that was repainted and aged many decades ago in a beautiful Normandy camouflage pattern. Plus it is a wonderfully large size ET71 with rear lot number 1299 and so large enough to fit most heads of today.
This is a wonderfully aged wood chip embedded Normandy camo helmet in dark yellow tan base followed by brushed on red browns and forest green aged to appear as though it came right out of the war. These accurate and museum quality vintage German paratrooper helmets are very hard to find these days as most were sold off in the late 1990's and only ever appear in collector estate sales harvested from their own personal collections.
$900 SOLD
Please call, text or email me if interested.
Tel/Text: 1-438-502-5052
Email Us: helmetsofwar@gmail.com
GERMAN HELMET FACTORY PRODUCTION CODES
(Every original German helmet produced from 1935 to 45 had two factory stampings punched into the side and rear or both in the rear. The alpha numeric number refers to the factory location and the inside metric circumference in centimeters. The rear lot number refers to the production run and was used as a quality control measure. The font styles used at each factory were slightly different but highly consistent throughout the war and so fakes or reproductions will either not have these numbers at all or they will use the wrong font style or letter spacing and so are easily identified as post war made.)
(FS or EF)-Emaillierwerke AG, Fulda, Germany
(ET or ckl)-Eisenhuttenwerke, Thale, Germany
(Q)-Quist, Esslingen, Germany
(NS)-Vereinigte Deutsche Nikelwerke, Schwerte, Germany
(SE or hkp)-Sachsische Emaillier u. Stanzwerke, Lauter, Germany
