Double decal german croatian police helmet

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Striker, that is correct. The helmet is a post war put together fake.

Cheers, Ade.

[davies435]

So the conclusion is that the markings on the helmet are not genuine and possibly something that one has placed on it post war?

Being Croatian myself, this would be something of great interest to myself.

Whoua-there! I certainly haven't said they're not genuine !
I'd need to see better pics close-ups etc before I'd give my opinion, but it would STILL only be my opinion - albeit based on a fair bit of experience on these things. I've bought helmets from some of the big names - most expensive being from Kelly Hicks, and even though that had a great provenence, the decal wasn't as good as some others I have - so even a top-end helmet could sometimes get overlooked.
Seen as I have one of these croat helmets I'm not intrigued by this helmet. PLEASE.....before you go slapping-on paint-stripper (really bad move) take a closer look at it. Where abouts are you by the way? I'd like to see this thing "in the flesh" maybe.
Please send me hi-rez picks to
davies435@aol.com
and I'll take a look at them
don't strip it!!!!!

Mike

[davies435]

Having just had a look at the pics on the original post I wouldn't say the paintwork is bad. The winter camo i'd say HAS been added (tried it with UV light?), but the green looks ok to me. The decals, on first inspection look good to me. Pig-skin liner COULD be a good one, but there's something about the felt that looks "iffy" - checked that with UV light yet?FROM THESE PICS alone, I'd say that the shell and it's green finish and decals could very well be as they should be, the white finish looks badly aged and therefore added to make it more interesting, the liner......well........the underlying felt looks to be modern, which raises questions about the originality of the leather (Having said that I've seen original leathers for sale , and have a few in my collection that never got as far as having the felt sewn onto them....so maybe somebody replaced the felt. I wouldn't go disposing of the helmet or destroying it. email me with pictures!

mike

[DougB]

Mike, the police decal is a reproduction, the white paint is postwar and the liner is reproduction. Add it up and that Croat shield has as much chance as being original as the Santa Claus who faked this one. In addition the green paint appears to be much darker than what I would expect on an ET M35 in this production year.

Also I do not understand your comment regarding Kelly Hicks and how good the decal could have been, they are either good, or bad, original or fake, or are you talking condition?

Cheers
Doug

[Pierre N]

i agree the decal is fake , here, your decal compared to the real police decal . look around the swastika , the real color is dark green , your police decal is silver

Pierre

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Mike, I can only agree with my forum friends.

The Croatian decal is bad. As I already stated the size of the "chequerboard" is incorrect.

Cheers, Ade.

[davies435]

“that Croat shield has as much chance as being original as the Santa Claus who faked this one. In addition the green paint appears to be much darker than what I would expect on an ET M35 in this production year”

Reissue helmets come in a myriad of different of colours - add to that the age,dirt and grime of 70 years and it isn't really that surprising that this might look dark. I have an M35 here that I nearly "passed-over" because I thought it was painted BLACK, but after a fair bit of work using BRASSO and cutting back all the grime and filth I found it to be a nice feldgrau underneath. Unfortunately I think it's all too easy to shout "fake" (especially if somebody else has it!). Reading the other comment about the decals, if everybody is going to use the same books is it any wonder they all come to the same conclusions? There we a LOT of different producers of decals through the war (There were four in Slovenia alone that made Police and WH decals. I'm back and forth Slovenia and the other former Yugoslav countries all the time and would suggest that people keep an open mind about these things as the museums around Ljubljana and Bled have good examples of the variations used (Lets not forget the early Alg SS helmets had handpainted "decals" and later went onto the produced decals.
A lot of guys out there would probably pass one of these up too!

The croat sheild has four variations that I've seen so far and NOT just the one in that small paperback book (forget the authors names now....one Weinand?)

Regarding the Kelly Hicks helmet. Now I understand to many he's a god and woe betide all who take the name in vain, but what I meant was although I paid a lot of money for it and unquestionably an original, the runic decal really was........well.......average ! He's featured it in his latest book - although he did do me the honour of spelling my name without the "E") The silver metallic "glint" that everybody talks and thinks about didn't exactly rock my boat. I saw no shining light or nor behold an epiphany where life's meaning suddenly became clear. There was a slight (and I mean SLIGHT) glitter there - but I've seen better sparkly runic decals that were fakes up the road in the Czech republic!

Prague is 3 hours away from me and I know exactly where to buy fabulous "genuine" runic sheilds from which would win over even the most doubting collector a lot faster than my Hicks helmet!

The point I'm trying to make is that what seems to have happened is that the same sorry books have now become gospel - and people use them too rigidly. If a decal is in any way different to the examples therein - GOT TO BE a fake! I had one well known authour who came to my house to buy and MP40 from me a few years back and he said to me......."if you don't know something...make it up! Once it's in print it becomes the truth". He's become a good friend of mine and since also admitted that he's used repro stuff in more than one of his books on collecting WWII German gear. Its made me take a whole different view of the printed matter out there. A couple of years back I got hold of five original unused LW 2nd pattern adlers. I applied one to a good repro FJ helmet and aged it and had a "serious" collector almost beg me for it!

The decal is genuine so it must be a good one (he couldn't believe the condition) - he got blinded by the adler and forgot the other things. I've also got a fair few original unused police decals here - again, one of which I've applied...........and even THAT doesn't look as good as the best fakes! and that's what happening now in this hobby, AND in reverse, when something has ONE thing that doesn't quite fit with what's in those "reliable" books.........gotta be a bad one. collecting 3rd reich stuff has become an expensive and dangerous adrenaline sport. The fakes out there are outstanding so people assume it's a fake until proven otherwise.

One of the more reliable tests on decals and liners is the UV test, black should come up as black and not green and white stitching shouldn't jump out at you - until i see either of these I try to keep an open mind on the things.

[davies435]

Ade,
Ok.....that's one opinion I suppose, but........"incorrect" compared to what exactly?
Which example in which book as I seriously doubt you've had more than one in your hand.

Mike

[DougB]

I agree with some of what you are saying regarding variations and local manufacturers as SS decals have some proven local suppliers and there is evidence to support this, but you have to be careful when you are using supposition on other items to prove the validity of this decal / helmet. SS decals had some early local manufacture, there is an Austrian used on early Austrian transitionals all in brown which also use a variant party decal. The known helmets are all identical and more than likely early SS-TV helmets repainted from black parade helmets. There is no evidence of this decal being used past the transitional and formative phase. There are I believe 3 known "Scandinavian" variants, called this as 2 of the 3 or perhaps all 3 are named and researched to former Scandinavian owners. There is another in Kelly's last book with 2 examples, these are unknown and may be foriegn. Hand rendered Allgemeine SS helmets are not for the novice collector but with anything else, hands on experience is needed to determine real from fake. The existence of these SS decals and hand rendered Allgemeine SS helmets does not make this police helmet a real one.

As for SS decals, depending on the decal manufacturer and year of production, the pulver will be different in particular when it comes to "champagne" runes or post 1940 ET decals. If you are judging SS decals strictly by "glitter" then that is incorrect as each manufacturer uses various metallic compositions to construct the metallic pulver from bronze to aluminum which will all appear quite different and of course age will also affect the pulver as metallic compounds oxidize with age. (which is your helmet? I have a pretty good idea but there is a Mike Davis who has helmets featured in SS Steel by Hicks/Beaver and is also referred to as M.Davis in the book). You must know and study the different SS decals in hand to get an appreciation and experience of the subtle differences, and not so subtle. Your comments on "glitter" and the relation of "glitter" in fakes is really way off base and in no way represents what to look for in an authentic SS decal.

I also would not judge originality based on what museums have in their collections. Many items in museums are modern reproductions, as a curator of the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa told me once, it is to give the viewer a representative look at the time and place. I have been through many if not most war museums in Western Europe and the number of reproduction items is astounding.

If you have other photos of a decal variation of this type of police decal please post it up for comparison.

As for using books, I tend to look behind me at what is on my shelves before going to a book. That being said, many books offer a valuable resource and learning tool, however there are many other means of determining a decals originality, including high resolution magnification and xrf analysis.

In the end, we have here a helmet with a fake liner, fake white camouflage paint on top of a helmet with 2 decals that there is no printed or photographic evidence pointing them to be real. The circumstantial evidence alone points to this bieing a hopped up piece not to mention the police decal itself being a reproduction.

[Schwerpunkt]

One of the more reliable tests on decals and liners is the UV test, black should come up as black and not green and white stitching shouldn't jump out at you - until i see either of these I try to keep an open mind on the things.

Thanks for the entertaining posts Mike. Can't wait to see some hi-res pictures from your collection. Your open mindedness must have provided you with some unbelieveable helmets.