What has someone done to this M42?

[Jcoll84]

Greetings all,
I was recently given this obviously done-up m42 by a friend who inherited it from his father's estate

The shell itself appears genuine, ET 66 batch 2425, though it had an embarrassingly bad fake Heer decal applied to it which I've already removed. Interestingly, there's an outline of what might have been a previous decal on it. I'm wondering if this helmet ended up in the service of another country during/after the war with its own decal applied before making its way to a collector who applied the fake Heer decal.



That is not where the mystery ends however, the paint job itself is curious. A dark green textured paint with white speckles all throughout. I don't own any other German helmets so I'm not skilled enough to identify whether or not it left the factory like this or was repainted during the war, but any help would be appreciated. There is a hint of the original finish in some areas


The most perplexing part about this is the chinstrap. It only has 7 holes with no maker stamp and has a roller buckle. It's been riveted (poorly by hand it looks like) onto the bales of what appears to be a genuine DRP m31 liner from 1940 (interesting that the liner & helmet date don't match- perhaps someone restored the shell with a liner they found?)

I've looked high and low at other period helmets from other countries to see what helmet this chinstrap was taken from but have drawn blanks- I simply can't identify the origin! I hesitate to call it a reproduction or forgery, since you would expect one of those to actually reproduce the proper German chinstrap, which this doesn't.




What could this chinstrap be from? And does this appear to be a repaint from a German factory, a different country post-war, or a private collector?
Since the shell and liner appear genuine, I'm considering removing the chinstrap if it yields no historical provenance, and stripping the paint as well if it turns out to not be genuine as well.

Interestingly, I did see another ET m42 LW helmet of the same batch pop up for auction recently sporting a similar paint job. I'm not knowledgeable to tell if this one is genuine either



I've posted here as I'm unaware of whether or not this is a wartime paint job/buckle replacement and it appears to be a genuine shell, but if this thread is more appropriate in a different section of the forum I will be happy to move it.