Helmet liner queery

[ROBB]

Hello fellows I had this helmet for sale on the stand now the potential purchaser has been told that the liner is fake , please could you give me your thoughts .

Thankyou Rob

[ROBB]

close ups

[ROBB]

more

[ROBB]

and also

[luftwaffenkopf]

at first it looks alright, but looking closer i see small things that bother me; the way the fingers are not rounded but have angle cuts to them, that stitch in the middle of one pad, and the whitish/lighter than i would expect stitching throughout considering the condition of the rest of the liner... i haven't seen these characteristics before on an accepted original M17 liner, so i do have my doubts about it. the dark leather doesn't bother me as i've seen this on M17s before... is there a smell to the leather that could tell you if it's a newer treated/aged material?

[ROBB]

Thanks for your reply . Just old and musty like the rest of the helmet , its definitely old ( you can see the age and deterioration ) . Perhaps a late war ersatz liner ? one pad seems to be filled with straw or horse Hair the other folded sheets of stripy material . Rob

[C. Roelens]

Hello Rob,

The first red flag for me are the liner pins/rivets... all three of them have been re bent. The prongs on these pins will lay flat and tight when factory installed. Liner pin/rivet prongs installed on the steel band of a M17 liner system do not pull away as they do on the aged shrinking leather band of the M16 liner system. Of course you already know this. Once I see this, the rest of the liner system requires a closer inspection.

The poorly cut/shape of the liner pads looks odd. The stitching is questionable. One liner pad also has a row of stitching running vertical near the steel band, the others do not. I have never seen the very thick tie strings on the backsides of these pads securing the liner pad cushions in their pouches on any WWI German liner system. Lastly, there are extra holes in some of the liner pad fingers where someone run a piece of string to replace the original drawstring.

Just my two pennies...

Chuck

[ROBB]

Thanks Chuck . the pins have been rebent but a long time ago they are stuck in that position and don't move they are not loose and that liner is not a newly manufactured thing , its very old , new leather does not deteriorate like this and the white does not take on that dirty color . I think it must be a post WW1 war addition perhaps Friekorps . Rob

[PlaceOfBayonets]

This may help. This leather has the same type of stitching. The liner pads in question also look like British repro I got in a bad helmet once too however.

[pzrwest]

The padding ties look like white flat shoe or boot laces

[mchap]

I think it must be a post WW1 war addition perhaps Friekorps . Rob

I can say with 100% certainty that its not.

Freikorps would have used the same WW1 issued hardware, there were no special liners created for their helmets.

Any organic material like leather can be faked convincingly... and even though your liner looks pretty old, I'd still look at it
with a dose of healthy skepticism.

[ROBB]

What about the Horse Hair liner pads and the striped material wad liner pad ? . Any of you reenact ors want to show us a reenactor liner ? As for age I have been collecting this stuff for a long time and I have seen aged liners this has deteriorated and gone stiff and has not been wiped with an oily rag . Perhaps the liner comes from a different country . Anyway I am selling it as a shell and have reduced the price massively . Thanks again fellas for your thoughts . Rob