My Collection

[Shawn Bern]

Part of my collection

[Shawn Bern]

ii

ii

[Shawn Bern]

Iii

Iii

[Shawn Bern]

Iiii

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[Shawn Bern]

Iiii

V

[Shawn Bern]

Vi

Vi

[Adam S.]

Nice collection. I would like to see better pictures of the Luftwaffe wire helmet because I have my doubts about originality.

[Shawn Bern]

Sure

No Problem, I will post by tommorow.

[Shawn Bern]

Response

I am more than happy to submit more pics, In a world of fakes one should always question and I would be interested in what anyone has to say. When I first found this example I was immediately skeptical given the clock on the rear skirt of the helmet. I went on a intensive search to see if this insignia was indeed period. I emailed a nice gentleman by the name of Brian Bell who has put together a excellent and comprehensive web site dedicated to all information concerning the german steel helmets during the Third Reich. Below is a copy of our last correspondence concerning the two helmets I have previously posted. Since that message I have found another collector that is deep into helmets and he gave me the same information Mr. Bell did in reference to the clock. I have examinded the helmet in detail and have paid special attention to the end cuts of the wire itself. The condition on these small edges match the age of the rest of the wire. My thought process on this in reference to it being a fake is that someone would have had to have a exacting length of old wire to meet the circumference of the helmet itself to keep the wire in place. In the pictures provided I hope you can see the wire is pitted and obviously very old. I supposes old wire could have been cut to legth and then artificially aged over a period of time so its cut ends are concurrent with the age of the rest of the wire yet in person the texture, smell, and overall feel is correct to me. I will be the first one to admit that I do not know everything about helmets and to be sure its only logical to be skeptical. I am very interested in anything anyone has to say and I appreciate the knowledge from anothers perspective.




from German-hemlets.com (which is a excellent
-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Bell [mailto:german_helmets@yahoo.com]
Sent: Sunday, December 06, 2009 9:33 PM
To: Bernhardt, Shawn M SFC NGWI
Subject: Re: [U] FW: Helmet Review

The helmets look fine although the Luftwaffe helmet is missing the eagle
decal - looks like someone scratched it off. The clock insignia is a
Luftwaffe ground combat unit divisional insignia.

Brian Bell
The Online Guide to WWII German Helmets www.german-helmets.com

[Shawn Bern]

More

More 1

[Shawn Bern]

More 2

More 2

[LMG]

Very nice collection
Thanks for posting

Regards
Luke

[Adam S.]

Difficult to say with these pictures. I am also by far an expert on camo helmets but the wear on the paint is what raised my concern.

I would suggest posting it in the helmet forum and letting the helmet heads have a look.

Cheers,

A