M42 helmet real or fake? (No decals)

[infin1ty92]

Thanks again for answering You are right.

sscrooge, what do you think about the rest of the helmet? the chinstrap and so on :/?


ty in advance

[Adrian Stevenson]

I think you will find your helmet is ex-Norwegian Army. The traces of the light olive green paint is typical of a post war Norwegian repaint as is the dyed red colour to the leather liner. These liners also had glued on reinforements to the drawstring holes.

These helmets were rebuilt from ones left behind in Norway by German forces in 1945. They were used to re-equipe the post war Norwegian Army, Air Force and later Home Guards units.

Cheers, Ade.

[Dimas]

Yes, the helmet looks like Norvegian re-issue. What did you pay for that helmet?

[infin1ty92]

152€

[infin1ty92]

Looks like it's worse than i thought. Just tried to scrape a little off, of what i thought was the black paint. But it looks like its pure steel! It has no paint applied, and the olive green paint looks like to be old primer? Some places on the helmet is what looks like original german dark green paint, also on the split rivets. My only hope now is that the chinstrap is original... Damn.

[Adrian Stevenson]

I am pretty familiar with the helmets having rebuild some for German re-enactor friends.

The Norwegians repainted them using the light green paint as seen on yours. Sometimes they painted directly over the original wartime German paint, (if you are lucky this can be stripped off to reveal the original paint. I did this and discovered a nice single decal Heer M40) other times, as seen here on yours, they stripped all the original paint off before applying the new paint.

Sorry but the chinstrap is a fake.

Cheers, Ade.

[infin1ty92]

Okay then.. It's just... The chinstrap looks really old, and it doesn't smell of chemicals.. But you are the expert, So yeah.. Nothing to do about it. Thanks for your help!

[Dimas]

The helmet with original linier is around 300 eur, and with chinstrap is approx 400 eur

[infin1ty92]

Hi Dimas, thanks for your comment. what do you think about this chinstrap :/?

[SteveR]

I am pretty familiar with the helmets having rebuild some for German re-enactor friends.

The Norwegians repainted them using the light green paint as seen on yours. Sometimes they painted directly over the original wartime German paint, (if you are lucky this can be stripped off to reveal the original paint. I did this and discovered a nice single decal Heer M40) other times, as seen here on yours, they stripped all the original paint off before applying the new paint.

Sorry but the chinstrap is a fake.

Cheers, Ade.

Hey Ade what did you use to strip the Norwegian paint off?
Steve