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by
christek
That is a 'messed with' Spanish M42/79 helmet - Shame about the ridiculous paint job, these are quite neat in original form, I purchased one just the other day.
It's all rather unfortunate really, as you say the M42/79 is indeed an interesting enough helmet in its own right, and, I have noticed, becoming increasingly uncommon. And people do, really, collect Spanish helmets, you know! When I started helmet-collecting fairly seriously about fifteen years back they were everywhere and quite cheap (although the original 'Modelo z' with leather liner has always been rather less easy to find) and I've noticed they appear less and less on Ebay and the like these days. Indeed a quick Google turned up only an IMA listing at an IMA price.
Its a shame this decent helmet was ruined. But then the same thing happens with other equally genuinely hard to find helmets that have a resemblance to something apparently valuable - a quick paint job, a bit of surgery, a few decals added or sometimes removed to fool the uninitiated - the result, a good helmet wasted and no-one serious will be taken in anyway.
I anticipate a time when it will be a whole lot easier to find (if not pay for) a genuine TR helmet than a Modelo Z.
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06-01-2016 06:30 PM
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It does seem to me that *already* the Spanish Modelo Z (first and second version) are actually considerably rarer than German M35-family helmets. For a start a lot fewer were produced - Spain used a lot of other helmets as well as the Modelo Z so its certain there would not have been equivalence with the number of troops in the Spanish military. So, probably rather less than half a million made, and thats a pretty liberal estimate I think. That's nothing compared to the M35-family production. Even when you take into account the vast numbers of German shells that would have been destroyed, lost or scrapped after the war there's still a pretty big disparity in numbers available.
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