Quick Question

[yanks12025]

Hello,
At a local auction next week they have a lot of German helmets but they have been refurbished. How would i tell whether the helmets are real with just post war/fake paint or if the helmets are 100% fake. Thanks for any help

[ObKrieger]

well, the word "helmet" is very broad actually so do you mean how can you tell if the shell itself is real?

well, take a look at the liner. if it was refurbished that means that the liner is most likely a replacement and the paint is new. the best ways to tell are by looking at the edge of the helmet and any stampings. m35's and m40's will have a clean rolled edge, not crimped. m42's will have a flaired edge and many examples have ripples or other indications of stress being put on the metal, right along the edges. also, the dimensions are usually off with fake shells.

its very common for fake chinese shells to be of very poor quality and they will usually have random jumbles of cyrillic and latin letters and numbers on the back. i have a couple that i use for reenactments.

german shells will have stampings that indicate the size of the shell and the factory that made it.

heres a link that might help you out:

German-Helmets.com