Help needed with ID of this steel helmet ,To me it looks Italian but not 100% sure , thank you for any help
Help needed with ID of this steel helmet ,To me it looks Italian but not 100% sure , thank you for any help
Italian M33....... looks unused?
" I'm putting off procrastination until next week "
Thank you yes looks unused , looking at it i am thinking now its a Bulgarian M51 helmet ?
That looks like a Bulgarian M51/72!....
Definitely Eastern block Bulgarian or Romanian possibly.
I concur! Without an earlier M51 next to it to compare I opine based on the stitched rather than rivetted chinstrap.
I often think of assembling a sub-collection of cold war Sov-Bloc helmets but I know I have to confine my collection somehow so just learning and knowing about some stuff has to be enough!!
Regards
Mark
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing he cares more about than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature with no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
A big give a way is the large ink stamp on the liner of the Bulgarian lids, also the lack of the point on the visor/peak which is on the Italian lids!...
Morning everyone,
I confirm that it is a Bulgarian M51/72, a helmet probably inspired by the Italian M33 helmet, but made of poor quality materials.
Even the shape is similar but not the same, as "Gunny" says, the M33 has a small visor, and the curvature of the shell surface is different.
The chinstrap is very different, while the leather of the liner is quite similar, however at first glance it differs from the Italian one for an expert eye; moreover Italian helmet never has ink stamps.
If it can serve for comparison, I add an Italian helmet M33/47, in the variant post-1975 with green chinstrap and shell painted in semi-gloss green color, which is the one most similar to Bulgarian helmet.
Regards
Roberto
I would have to agree with the other members on it being Identified as a Bulgarian M51/72 , This is where is gets a little confusing ,i have an example dated 1981 but has a refurbed m51 shell ,this earlier shell had a less pronounced rim with smoother contours as found on the earlier m36 models and similar to the Italian m33's ,your shows a more pronounced rim so is second model type
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