Treasures in a scrap yard

[Paul D]

Great story Gus and thankfully in Spain you have the climate where they haven't deteriated too much , in England they would have been a pile of rust !!!

regards

Paul

[brant]

These rare finds are still out there only yo be discovered. An amazing find!!

[Steve T]

I am lost for words.

Well...I'm not lost exactly but 90% of them would be rejected by a profanity filter

WHAT A FIND !! Great job !

Steve T

[guscanoesp]

Great story indeed! But at 9 euro ...wouldn't it have been worth taking some spanish m-21 and M-26 helmets as wel...!??

Stuka,

We actually kept some M-21 and M-26, and traded them some time later for other militaria.

Regarding the Z-42s, of course we took some. In fact, the last day of our search for german helmets, we loaded the car´s trunk full of m-42s. The scrap yard was a family business, and it was the young son´s job to separate the liners from the lids. If you look closely at the center of the second photo, you will see a rudimentary table, used by this kid to remove the liners one by one. After several days of being in the scrap yard, we became friends with the kid. He told us he was sick and tired of removing helmet liners all day long. His dad was not around the last day, so he told us to help ourselves with all the helmets we could take. The more helmets we took, the less work for him.

We ended up giving most of the helmets as gifts and finally traded the rest. But it was not worth taking a lot of them, as we did not have the space to store them, and also because the price of those helmets was, and is still today, really cheap. You can get a decent specimen for 20 euros without problems.


Regards,


Gus

[guscanoesp]

Great story Gus and thankfully in Spain you have the climate where they haven't deteriated too much , in England they would have been a pile of rust !!!

regards

Paul

Thanks for your praise, Paul.

Actually the helmets were in decent shape because they had been in the scrap yard for less than a week before we spotted them. They had taken them there from a military depot, where they had been stored in a huge warehouse in relatively good humidity and temperature conditions. The ones that had suffered most were the american M1 type helmets, most were bent and crushed. But, apart from some small dings and scratches caused by the transport process, the rest of them were in a very decent condition. Of course, the good weather also helped to keep them in that condition for so many years.

Regards,

Gus

[stuka f]

Stuka,
......

You can get a decent specimen for 20 euros without problems.


Regards,


Gus

That is more than 100% benefit !!!
You don't get that anymore those days!!
I know, storing and transport to add.....

[NickD]

must have been like a kid in a candy shop i would have loved to have been there & helped, you would have had to drag me away

[packin9]

Lucky you! And it wasn't a boring story. Thanks for the pics and info!!

[Mickzilla]

Wow...That says it all!

[Dirt Detective]

Great story and pictures..any photos of the lot of 38 German helmets? On another note, I lived in Spain for two years 1978 and 79 beautiful country, would love to go back someday.