DESCRIPTION
This helmet came out of a estate of an advanced collector whose family inherited it along with several other German paratrooper helmets all similar to this one. As the former paint job was absolutely horrible I went ahead and completely stripped down the shell and repainted it as per WW2 Normandy specifications. In my opinion this shell was produced back in the 1980-90's in Western Europe when they were still making highly accurate paratrooper shells. Some suggest this was achieved using original factory presses and machinery but I highly doubt that. The helmet has a near perfect overall shape and curvature to the top dome along with the correct subtle upward rise along the front rim edge. The cheap knockoffs can never quite get the shape right as the bottom rim tends to slope upwards too abruptly and at too steep of an angle. The original paratrooper helmets are almost flat bottomed when you lay them on a hard surface and really have that bowl shaped appearance to them.
The outside camouflage paint appears mildly weathered and aged and has nice overall patina to it even though the colors are still somewhat vibrant. The inside liner is darkened leather and has the correct end over end stitch pattern seams and is faintly ink stamped. The chinstrap appears to have been chemically treated but is nice to have because it completes the piece.
The shell is stamped ET71 with a rear lot number of 1235 which coincides with Brian Ice's lot data book as a real paratrooper lot number and so most of the boxes are checked here historically speaking.
Definitely nice to have a large size like this as it will fit most modern men's heads of today and can be used for display or even historical re-enacting. Again I believe this helmet to be a high level repro and so please bid accordingly. Definitely a very nice shelf Queen and will fool your friends at a fraction of what the real deal would go for.
$350 + shipping.
Shipping to Anywhere USA/Canada: $22 with full tracking numbers.
Shipping to Europe/UK: $65 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 to facilitate ease of delivery.)
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
