DESCRIPTION
This particular helmet came from the estate of a long time military collector out of Kennebunkport, MA whose wife tells me he used to prefer buying from swap meets and yard sales as opposed to military shows as there were few in the area he lived in. Well this helmet is quite a fantastic specimen and shelf Queen but what is it actually?
Well it's an original M40 SE64 helmet rear lot numbered 331 placing the factory production date to March 1940 according to Brian Ice's lot data book. As you can see from the detailed photos the original liner although darkened from sweat and grime remains fully intact with no leather fingers broken off or missing. The inside paint is smooth enamel feld grau and 100% original. The steel buckle end of the original chinstrap also remains fully in tact and so it just needs the long end of an original or aged reproduction to complete the piece which I may add shortly.
But what about this camo paint?
At first glance you immediately think that this helmet looks like something painted in someone's garage. But if you really study the colors and pattern used you will notice that this closely resembles camo netting that would have been used to conceal vehicles and gun emplacements during the war with a sort of geometric blob effect to break up straight line patterns and better blend into the background foliage. The colors used are also quite telling as they are definitely very old hues of muted earth tones seen in German WW1 helmets with brick reds, sage green and yellow tans. These are the exact same colors used in WW2 before paint additives in the 1950's made colors brighter and more vivid as we see today.
My overall opinion is that this helmet is most likely painted in theater by the US vet who brought it back as a kind of souvenir trophy for himself. Someone took a lot of time and effort to paint out this camo scheme achieved delicately by brush. The paint used is definitely very old and retro looking. Camos in general are sometimes difficult to authentic especially if that German painted it late in the war in 1944-45 and was himself quickly captured afterwards before that helmet saw much use. Many collectors look for lots of hard aging which is a great way to determine originality but what about all those camo helmets yanked off the heads of fresh German POW's shortly after they were first painted? If I showed you one of those at first glance one would conclude "too fresh, not enough natural aging and so post war for sure...."
One thing I do like about this helmet is that there is smooth brown rust in the form of wear around both vent holes and along the entire edgeline. From doing enough WW2 re-enacting myself I can say that this would mainly come from picking up the helmet and laying it up and down on the ground hundreds of times to get that nice edgewear as well as some scratching on the top dome.
As we all know for every camo you have many opinions but this in my book is a 25% maybe and 75% vet art trophy helmet. And so it is priced accordingly. In any event it definitely looks cool on your display shelf and no one else will have anything like it!
$600
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: $75 with full tracking numbers.
Shipping to Australia/New Zealand: $85 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, Germany
