Steel Helmet M42

[Adravor]

The one you posted used to be mine Andy. That example was completly stripped, repainted inside and outside, smooth paint, replaced chinstrap and dyed liner, with norwegian split pins.

I have bought quiet a few helmets from Norway and usually look at the market there often, so i´ve seen quiet a few examples. I have never seen one without the decals applied - BUT i have seen some that did not not stripped. Those just had a light green paint applied - very thinly over the textured german paint, norwegian decals put on, with everything left as it was. With those its hard to say - where does the Norwegian start and the Wartime german end. Without the decals they could aswell be german camos.

I assume these, not stripped and not redyed examples could simply be very early used examples, where the main goal was to overpaint the decals. Maybe there are examples without decals? Its very hard to say, these would be very easily mistaken for fully WW2 german examples.

[AndyM35]

Thank you very much ;-)

Could you possibly take some photos in natural daylight outside. Really hard to get a real impression of what colour the paint actually is.

[AndyM35]

The one you posted used to be mine Andy. That example was completly stripped, repainted inside and outside, smooth paint, replaced chinstrap and dyed liner, with norwegian split pins.

I have bought quiet a few helmets from Norway and usually look at the market there often, so i´ve seen quiet a few examples. I have never seen one without the decals applied - BUT i have seen some that did not not stripped. Those just had a light green paint applied - very thinly over the textured German paint, Norwegian decals put on, with everything left as it was. With those its hard to say - where does the Norwegian start and the Wartime German end. Without the decals they could as well be German camos. However, I am a little intrigued to know the actual time frames for when German lids were requisitioned by the Norwegians and the changes they went through etc, so perhaps there is someone on the forum with some intel on that.

I assume these, not stripped and not redyed examples could simply be very early used examples, where the main goal was to overpaint the decals. Maybe there are examples without decals? Its very hard to say, these would be very easily mistaken for fully WW2 german examples.

What you say Adravor, makes sense and its obvious you have experience with handling Norwegian re-issues. If it wasn't for the odd colour, and if the paint was a feldgrau then I think we would all being say German WW2 overpainted etc. Its the colour that is strange and why I think some daylight photos would really assist as we all know how important photo are to analysing helmets. If it is a WW2 era and simply overpainted, whoever stuck the fake decals on was either completely unaware of how M42's looked in service or just wanted to hump up the lid for more $$ which is totally possible.

I thought I read somewhere that it was around 1949 that original WW2 German helmets started being re-issued by the Norwegian army? Would be interested to know exactly when and if there were any variations to the more regular dyed leather etc

[KDVR]

Thank you all very much. Unfortunately I have only this pictures.

[AndyM35]

Thank you all very much. Unfortunately I have only this pictures.

All good. If you do happen to purchase it, would love to see some more pics.

Thanks,
Andy

[Schwerpunkt]

It is very unlikely it is a Norwegian Reissue, because of following Points:

The norwegian repainted usually the whole shell, in a different, smooth green color then this one.
Before doing that, they usually stripped the whole shell, leaving nothing of the OG paint (There are exceptions to this.)
They applied Norwegian Decals, and there is no trace of them here.
They usually redyed and refreshened the liner, i see very few Norwegian Reissues without this characteristic.

In my opinion this could simply be an original, field repainted helmet that had fake decals applied. I see very little indication of it being a Norwegian Reissue and i would like to know why the others assume that? I would also know why you assume the overpaint is Post War - it shows use, patina and is a color i have seen with WW2 shells, moreso the liner wasnt removed for repainting - as it should be with field repaints.

Here is a Norwegian Reissue:

Attachment 1722763

If you own this helmet, i would advise you to peel of what remains of the decals and keep the remaining helmet as is.

There's a lot of different styles in these Norwegian conversions. Not all have decals, not all have red dyed liners or were complete overpaints.
It's an interesting topic all by itself but a lot of helmets in this paint color will be tied to Norway but it could be Denmark too if I'm not mistaken.
Jan Meland posted some very interesting theories and examples on German helmet walhalla.