M1 paint: your help needed

[ziomanno]

Dear fellows, this is my first post here. I browsed this forum section and I found a lot of very useful infos on WWII helmets, so I hope you can give me your opinion on this M1 helmet: it should be a WWII specimen (front seam and fixed bails, lot # maybe 28B), with a nice firestone liner, but I'm not sure about the outer paint: I try to provide the better pics I can, what do you think about it?
Thanks in advance!

[NickD]

the finish looks fine to me all ya need is to get get a chin strap for the shell & you'll a very nice WW2 US M-1

[battle gear]

the paint looks like it's been repainted , probably a Korean war era repaint, the dark green shiny paint is a common vehicle paint they would have used at the depot.

[ziomanno]

First of all, thank you; well, the shade of the green actually looks like the OD used on vehicles (and I've heard about repainted helmets with vehicle OD paint during WWII too), but if you look closely, there's not a second layer of paint: where the paint is scratched, there is not cork texture and the color is more light. This is more evident on the brim, where clearly just one layer of paint is present, still with cork (and less shiny). It seems like the paint surface has been in somehow "oxidized" and thus darkened. Of course just my opinion, any suggestion is really appreciated.

[battle gear]

after seeing the close up photos, the paint looks like it has some gloss to the paint from aging, when a helmet gets wiped off a lot it can make the paint appear "shiney" a combination of patina, oxidation and wear and some of the original cork texture has worn off causing it to have a smoother finish.

in some of the previous photos the paint looks different probably from the flash

it could use some chin straps, they make some nice ones with weathered hardware that would look good on this helmet

[Walkwolf]

Welcome to the Forum, Ziomanno..........!

It has it's original paint - the netting looks new.
Some straps would perk it up, but they would not be original.......... !

[ziomanno]

Thanks to you all gentlemen! Actually the net (looks english pattern) is well used, with some rips and tears and discolored; now I'm looking for an original web chin strap but seems not an easy job, indeed. Not to mention the problem to fix it to the shell in the proper way...