DESCRIPTION
This is another fresh find out of an open air flea market in east Berlin where my brother has been living for the past 20+ years. Helmets with decals are not allowed to be publicly displayed in Germany however if you subtly ask the right vendors they will often have items with banned symbols on them for sale back at their shops or kept in storage that they would have a hard time selling otherwise. Most of the hidden helmets they try to sell you are Chinese fakes but sometimes as with this example they do have the real deal on offer. Let's ignore the background story however for a moment and see what we really have going on here.
This helmet is a mid-war M40 SE64 with a rear lot number of 7360 which matches up perfectly with Brian Ice's lot data book suggesting that this helmet was part of the SE polizei contract from 1940. So basically this helmet left the factory in 1940 as a double decal combat polizei and was used as such throughout the war. At some point most likely near the end of the war or postwar the helmet was given a fresh coat of field applied textured overpaint being careful to paint around both decals. The inside paint is a smooth enamel finish and in a dark pea green feld grau color. Then at some point most likely post war the swastika on the polizei eagle decal was neatly scrapped off but not the red party shield for whatever reason. The inside mid war liner system and 3 split pins are no doubt 100% original to the helmet and I see now signs of tampering. Basically this is another one of those oddball Berlin finds that has been mostly left in tact with some post war modifications on the outside.
$800
Shipping to Anywhere USA/Canada: $22 with full tracking numbers.
Shipping to Europe: $65 with full tracking numbers.
Shipping to Australia/New Zealand:$75 with full tracking numbers.
HELMETS OF WAR INC.
PO Box 555
Champlain, NY 12919-0555
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
