Estate Find Repainted Luftshutz Helmet

[Midwest Picker]

Hello and Greetings from the American Midwest!

This evening (EDT) I'd like to share my best find of this week thus far, a repainted Luftshutz steel helmet. I picked this up at a local Estate Sale Company's sale this afternoon. This location has been the site of several previous sales as the house was packed to the brim. In the past it has produced a broken HJ knife and scabbard (I did not purchase), WW2 French Helmet (I did purchase) and several American Garrison Caps (I did not purchase). I had pulled the afore mentioned French Helmet from a garage on the property which has been refilled with items from the homes basement with each sale. This helmet was hanging on a wall and found its way into my hands very quickly!

This helmet is numbered, however I only possess a broad and general knowledge of Third Reich Militaria and would appreciate any insight into the meaning of these numbers and your opinions on whether I should have a go at removing the green paint which I presume might have been applied by the children of the veteran who brought it home. Thank you!

[douglas2496]

Hello, welcome to the forum!

In this case, there would be no harm in removing the paint, except the time involved.

This is best done with acetone and cotton buds, but is a long job if you do it properly, so you should consider if you think its worthwhile.

[real steel]

The RL # on the rear rim is the factory/city that produced the helmet. If it were mine, I would spray paint it a midnight blue, maybe purchase a repro LS decal & that's about it. That green paint looks very thick, I doubt if you removed it, you would save the original paint on this. Might find an LS decal on the front...but as said in prior post, maybe too much work involved stripping it. Just my opinion.

I really hope you did not pay much for this because to be honest, in the condition it is in....the value is quite minimal

[Midwest Picker]

Thank you for the welcome information Real Steel! This and the letter opener were part of a "fill a box" for $5 deal. Aside from some vintage magic tricks, an antique coffee strainer and a piece of antique African American Folk Art, this was the biggest part of my box. I believe due to the paint and long ago loss of the decal, no one working the sale knew what it was. Either way I think I landed on my feet! Many thanks for the information and suggestion!

[Midwest Picker]

Douglas2496, thank you for your suggestion! I may experiment with it for the fun of it as there is not a great deal to lose!

[MAP]

Well the letter opener was worth the $5 (I thought it was neat!). But consider the helmet as a shopping bag to carry the letter opener home in.

Like David said, and again just being honest, the helmet holds no collector value.

But it is something to play with, whether you remove the paint or restore it.

Nice to find these things at garage sales.

[douglas2496]

Just one more thing, are you certain that the decal is not under the paint?

[BlackCat1982]

It looks too smooth to have any decal left, but would also be wanting to get rid of that horrible green paint, worth a try any day of the week. Nice find!

[douglas2496]

I expect you are right, but I stripped modern paint from my Luftschutz helmet, which revealed an intact decal underneath. I could not see any sign of it beforehand due to the thick paint, so I would just check this if I were you.

[Danmark]

At least the one piece is a bit scarcer than the 3 piece Luftschutz......