Double decal german croatian police helmet

davies435 · 08-25-2009, 07:38 PM

by Schwerpunkt

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.

Somewhere...a village must be missing you!
Indeed I have picked-up some great helmets
If you take a look a Hicks "ss steel" you'll see one of mine (p26)- which to "experts" passed up. Page 170 - another M42 is also now one of mine. When I get the time and inclination I'll take a look through some other boots with parts of my collection featured.
I now usually tend to go for the high end stuff, which opens up the possibilities for the "bottom-feeders", but still ruffle's feathers from time to time, say to say you get them on all forums.

**Espenlaub Militaria** · 08-25-2009 07:38 PM

We also buy and trade your items and full collections!

davies435 · 08-25-2009, 07:59 PM

Hey Doug,
in SS steel he used a picture of my M42's decal on page 26, I also now have another helmet featured in that book but at the time it was in someone elses collection. I seem to be mistaken as he spelt my name correclty in this book - there's ONE book out there somewhere featuring either one of my helmets or Uniforms where they spelt my name wrong anyway!
Where else in theat book am I then - could have sworn it was that one.
To clarify something here, I mentioned the "glitter" purely because I know a lot of people new to the game have read about this effect in a few of the now (over-read) books and pass over helmets without it. The First Hicks helmet I bought off him had a much less "exciting" look to it than a couple of collectors expected it to. Sat next to a re-finished helmet I bought as such.............with a Czech repro decal on (which is pretty amazing actually) it (the original) kind of gets lost - not a very impressive helmet at all. Actually...I think a good couple of years back Ade had the hicks helmet in his hand at the Birmingham show (correct me if I'm wrong Ade!). I took it there to see just how much the dealers knew about this stuff............more than five said it was a repro decal....until I showed them the provenance.
Different people different opinions,

Mike

**DougB** · 08-26-2009, 06:57 AM

Mike it all boils down to experience. Most dealers will not know an EF SS decal from any other "first pattern", nor know a high end fake from a real one. A dedicated SS helmet collector will be able to tell from 50 paces a real EF from most fakes. It all depends on your collecting background, experience and what you specialize in, nobody is an expert on everything.

Irregardless the metal pulver content on an EF is quite different than any other SS decal and they have a very flat look about them. The two examples you cite in SS Steel appear textbook.

So getting back to the topic at hand here Mike, please tell us about the homegrown Slovakian police decals and if you have pictures from the museum please share them. Variant and locally produced decals are not out of the realm of possibility but like the Austrian and Scandinavian SS a reasonable body of evidence must be provided to back the claim.

Until then, this helmet which has now been viewed by the top long time police collectors on the planet remains exactly what it has been designed to be, a reproduction helmet with reproduction decal(s) I am afraid to say.

I will also remind you to play by the forum rules when posting.

**Jager1945** · 09-01-2009, 08:15 PM

I feel that this give and take stimulated this discussion very well.
I do not think the pointed suggestions helped, but differing opinions are what constitute a great forum in my opinion.

-Jaeger

**Schwerpunkt** · 09-02-2009, 06:46 AM

by Jager1945

I feel that this give and take stimulated this discussion very well.
I do not think the pointed suggestions helped, but differing opinions are what constitute a great forum in my opinion.

-Jaeger

It's easy to start a discussion Jaeger , just offer an opposing viewpoint.
There are people who just participate so they can question everything , the 100% original and the 100% fake.
That's what has happened here and is not a good thing in my opinion as this helmet clearly has issues. So that makes me wonder why someone defends it here when it is so obvious.

**DougB** · 09-02-2009, 01:50 PM

Excuse the preaching in advance but the "defense" of the helmet by Davies using an unrelated example that has no bearing or correlation whatsoever to the subject helmet and then not backing up fairly bold statements with any kind of fact or photograph and only heresay is not give and take, it is what drives people away from collecting by adding to the pile of confusion, fakes, misinformation and new-age internet theories about artifacts.

If we want to grow this hobby then information must be shared amongst collectors in an objective and learned fashion and not just verbal gobbledy gook tossed into whatever direction the wind blows and see what wall it sticks on.

Hit and run posts like we see above do nothing to further or advance the hobby for collectors past present or future and this discussion propagated by Davies other than serving the purpose of adding a few kilobytes to the forum has done nothing whatsoever and was not in my opinion a serious discussion whatsoever.

How much give and take should there be about a clear fake helmet? If we allow the logic espoused above to propagate (my other helmet had less glitter than it should have therefore this one could be real because there were foriegn manufacturers) then we better sell all of our collections as the future generations of collectors will allow any theory tossed into the wild west of the internet, to take root and grow. That is exactly what the fakers want, keep collectors ignorant and buy into whatever the "internet theory du jour" is.

pattonusa · 01-14-2011, 07:22 AM

is this helmet for slae ? cause it may look bad to the rest of you but to me i could fix it up if you sold it

**martinsuper** · 01-19-2011, 09:00 PM

There were Croatian/German Police units. My grandfather was in one of them. If they had this combo of decals I cannot tell you, but I already posted a fantasy Croatian/German Police eagle that popped up so I'm not surprised about this.

The biggest mistake with this helmet is the black outline on the Croatian Coat of Arms. That outline SOMETIMES went around the outside, but NEVER within the coat of arms itself. That was the first give-away for me. They sell pre-aged decals on eBay right now and this looks like one of them.