Finnish M38 Helmet

[Steelhead10]

Hi all,

Miserable weather at home but fairly good light so thought I'd share a few of the helmets in my collection.

I picked this up in a lot of Finnish militaria. This is a Hungarian made shell with the further back liner pin postion and carry hook but with the DR batch/manufacturer code which from what I've read were for the initial Finnish order and lack the Hungarian Crown inspection stamp. This one survived the war and was repainted grey, relined with rivets instead of split pin, this makes the liner fixed in place and non-removable and a new chinstrap added and was likely placed into storage in Finland as the liner is so clean still.

Matt

[ruddersrangers44]

Great Helmet Matt,my favourite style of Headgear at the moment,including the model 55.it always surprises me the sheer amount of liner/rivet and chinstrap variations these Helmets seem to carry,usually examples carrying this model 55 liner normally are seen with the five holes drilled for the liner not three and those large flat rivets are mostly seen on the 1955 West German/finnish contracted shells.nice stuff wish there we're more threads showing these Helmets.

[Steelhead10]

I noticed there isn't a lot about the later variations of Finnish helmets but Finnish history has always fascinated me. Thought it was an interesting example of a surviving M38 although I didn't realise that they usually drilled more holes to fit the M55 liner. Thank you

[ruddersrangers44]

To coin the phrase "post war conversion" is such a vague term when discussing these variants.when we're the 3 padded thick leather banded liners first added? when was the chinstrap swopped out,when were the extra 2 holes drilled?the only reference site I know of is the "world war Helmets" and that doesn't give any of the information i've listed here,i'm still after an original export M38 without it's original hungarian Liner and chinstrap but their scarce and the only one i've seen in the last 6 months the seller wanted a whopping 800 Euro so no thanks.but my hunt will continue,never say never.
Hungarian export finnish contract.
check my variant out.

[Steelhead10]

It's a very niche area of research, from memory lots of these helmets were found in Finnish stores around 2012.
I know the feeling, I saw one for a decent price but did not have the funds at the time and then it sold quickly. I jumped on this as it came with a 1941 Dated Finnish Infantry officers tunic, the ww2 suunto compass, the winter war medal, a puukko style knife, a soviet officers belt and what I believe are Swedish woollen breeches.
The seller stated it had all previously been used as a museum display.

[ruddersrangers44]

Collecting can certainly be strange at times,these Helmets gather such a small group of interested of collectors and yet examples are so few and far between especially here in the UK.biggest regret was last sept 2022 a UK seller had two export examples on Ebay and one was still in factory format and I didn't buy it.that was a massive loss,who knows when the next bus will be along.