WW2 German cammo pattern barn find...real deal?

[M422A1]

I"ll give you two hundred dollars for it right now! :^)

[Tank Destroyer]

Nice helmet, really nice price. Congratulations!

[slados28]

I like it too --- it reminds me of my eastern front summer camo, also sprayed and definitely authentic. $175 is a steal!!

[relicz]

I like it, definately seen some heavy oxidation from poor storage, but legitimate none the less.

Great find and deal at $175, congratulations.

[Jammanna]

heres some outdoor close ups..hope this helps

[Neil Hever]

I'm on thumbs up side. I've seen several barn finds from Straubing (not camo) that had the very same age and patina. NH

[TrondK]

I bought a m42 some years ago in denmark for 18 us. the camo looked just as this one, only mine was very good condition.

[Wagriff]

For $175, even if it was totally wrong paint, it would Still be a damned good deal. As for the Paint? Well...I've never liked spray painted helmets-especially the camouflage pieces. There's just too many fakes made and some authoritative voices are now beginning to lean towards them as well. For me, to see the photo of a small sprayer doesn't tell me much, as I seriously doubt that there were many-if any-of the little spray rigs out in the German front lines war zones and the photo showing the desert paint being applied does not show Camo patterning, of course, but rather a simple 1 coat coloring. Has anyone ever come across a little German Army spray painter? Certainly, with the German military propensity for stamping and marking every time bit of equipment, there must be one out there Somewhere. You see some of the strangest most obscure pieces of equipment lustily stamped and marked with German markings-but Never yet a little fine nozzled spray painter? Or at least, photos of one being used? I think until I see a period photo of camo patterning being applied somewhere in the wilds of the Russian Steppes by some German troopers using a little hand held spray device that they got from some unknown source or shipped in from someone's home town in a packing crate, I will, likely, always avoid them-no matter how impressive they may look. The Hand Brushed camo paint is another animal altogether! But these pretty artistic looking helmets? If someone sprayed them in, say, 1960, they would now have 55 years of aging to them, and with the aging techniques getting better and better each year?....I'll wait...

[DougB]

William, there's plenty of evidence of period spray helmets.

[busman]

Looks good to me, it's very easy to get fine detail with a large spray gun, I'm sure they had air regulators on their compressor , and spray adjustment on the gun, I've touched up many a body panel using a decent size gun.