DESCRIPTION
This wonderful helmet was originally a yard sale find completely covered up in a vintage applied gold metallic paint. Most likely it was bikerized in it's past and belonged to one of those Harley Hog riders. Despite both the shape and weight being correct I wasn't sure until I was able to remove all of the old paint and bring the shell back down to bare metal to reveal it's original ET68 and rear lot number 2236 stampings. This lot number checks out in Brian Ice's lot data book to place the year of shell production sometime in March 1941 as seen in the photos below.
Since the helmet obviously needed a high end liner and since there simply is no accurate reproduction para liner in a size ET68 I had to get one custom made in Italy by a leather master who specializes in non-military leather and German paratrooper liners and nothing else related to WW2.
He is also very good at aging leather and so this liner really does look the part and was rather expensive to make requiring 6 months of waiting time.
The result is quite "brilliant" as some of my UK customers might express with an eye on matching up the outside factory paint with the inside liner. Once I had all of the parts together I went ahead and gave it a nice dark factory blau grau (blue gray) finish being slightly textured on the outside but a smooth finish on the inside. The eagle is your factory ET version that would have been employed at the Eisenhuttenwerkes company to complete all of their Luftwaffe contracts. I aged both the adler decal and outside paint so that it would blend naturally with the look of the aged leather liner. So liner, 4 bolts and outside paint are all post war restorations.
Very tough these days to hunt down an original M38 ET68 shell to work with and it's also nice to know that as of today's date that all of the high end fakes coming from Europe are always and have always been marked ET71 and as of today there are no ET68's even being made. I know that restoring helmets is somewhat of an artform as opposed to a hard science and so if one would prefer a different paint configuration such as a Normandy pattern with a masked off Luftwaffe decal just le me know as I don't mind changing or adding to my work to keep the customer happy.
$2400
Please call, text or email me if interested.
Tel/Text: 1-438-502-5052
Email Us: helmetsofwar@gmail.com
HELMETS OF WAR INC.
PO Box 555
Champlain, NY 12919-0555
Shipping to Anywhere USA/Canada: $22 with full tracking numbers.
Shipping to Europe/UK: $65 with full tracking numbers.
Shipping to Australia/New Zealand: $75 with full tracking numbers.
(Please contact us with any special shipping instructions as I am here to serve and facilitate the shipment.)
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, German
(Please contact us with any special shipping instructions as I am here to serve and facilitate the shipment.)
