How Can You......

[Kevin Barrett]

How can you afford german helmets? Me and my girlfriend were in awe over the going rates for german helmets? I have a fairly good job and I have to save up 6 months to buy one! Just out of curiosity what do yall do for a liveing???
Kevin

[Marc Walker]

The best thing for you to do is...... just what you said. Save up for 6 months and buy one.
A good helmet is an investment that will give you a better return in the future than a savings account.
Most hobbies cost money. This one makes money if it is done wisely.
Most of us could not justify doing this, if that weren't the case.

Look at it this way.......... If you could save up $1000 every 6 months and spend it on a nice helmet, in 5 years from now, you would have a nice collection of helmets that would probably be worth 3 times what you paid for them.
How much fun is that ? Pretty easy to justify when you look at it that way.

[Ty Smith]

There was an interesting thread recently about affording helmets, especially SS. I don't think there are any "rich" guys here who just buy them all. Collections take years to build. Patience, trust and knowlegde. (Luck doesn't hurt either) Money isn't always the hardest thing to overcome.

[Perry Floyd]

I agree Ty..
Kevin for most, including myself it takes several years to really get going. You have to build a collection with a constant process of upgrading. The larger your collection grows (and if you made smart purchases) your collection will help feed itself.
If your just starting my advice would be to concentrate on afordable helmets that are smart purchases. A nice honest $500-$650 SD army helmet or perhaps a Luft. After some time when you have built up 4 or so, sell them for a decent camo or a M35DD. When you have a couple of decent camo's or a couple decent M35DD's sell those to fund that high end camo or that excellant+ M35DD Heer or go after that SS.

[Tom Kibler]

Well said. I once thought people were out of their minds to drop $1000 on a lid. Now, depending on the lid, seeing some drop $5000-$10000 on a lid is not uncommon. It is amazing.

[Schwerpunkt]

The threshold is getting higher and out of reach for most new wannabe collectors. It used to be very easy to build a collection before the eighties , before the nineties even.

Now you must have patience , select carefully what you spend your money on.

The burn-factor is multiplied by 5 since the eighties.

But ... I think a lot of people here have good jobs and funds

[John Huff]

Who says we can afford it?

[Martin E]

I sell drugs...

[sscrooge]

i feel like taking drugs, [cyanide] when i think of some of the money i have wasted on fakes,good job i rob banks

[Lignemaginot]

I used to dabble in purchasing a cap here and there - the size of my collection didn't take off until I moved to Luxembourg and began purchasing entire collections of visor caps.

I'd plop down up to $20,000 for a collection of 75 caps or so (from guys who had been collecting for ages and wanted to retire with some cash), then I'd sell enough of the caps individually to recoup my investment, which would leave me with about 20 caps or so.

I did that several times until I ended up with about 60 very nice caps (which were then stolen by a plumber working on my house, but that's another story - I got most of them back).

After moving back to the US last year, I sold most of my collection - I only have about 3 caps at any one time now.

In the end, what with making some money and losing some here or there, I don't think the hobby cost me anything (except aggravation with my wife).

[langemarck]

my biggest problem is that, once I have a Helmet in my collection, I can't dispose of it!!