Can someone help me with this helmet?

[glaubenssoldat]

First off I'm a fairly new collector and this is the first helmet I've bought that I've considered to be period, but as I'm not a helmet collector I'm not sure about it's originality... I didn't pay that much for it (about 50 EUR) so if it's not real it's not that much of a loss

could anyone tell me if it might be real? It was suggested to me that it might be DAK because of the brown paint but I really don't know... The markings on the inside are very faded and corroded and I can only make out what appears to be a 22 with possibly letters above it






any help would be very much appreciated

[floriskok]

Hi,

This looks like an original M35 shell in a bad state, and repainted in brown.

Greetings, Floris

[DeMil]

It looks like it has been many years outside or in a wet celler, and painted with some brown unoriginal paint.

DeMil.

[glaubenssoldat]

thanks guys, I thought the brown looked a little weird and significantly different than the paint schemes on tunisian and DAK helmets... glad it's original though and not a fake aged helmet

[M35]

M35 shell

Agree with above comments. An additional thought though - this is one that would look a lot better with the recently applied brown paint removed! Some paint remover would work wonders......

tvg

[glaubenssoldat]

any recommendations for a specific brand of paint remover?

[M35]

Removing paint

No, any good quality brand will work. Like what you find at Ace for example. It is easier to use the thick stuff, that is almost like paste. You can control it better. Make sure it says on the can that it works on all types of paint.

tvg

[Paul G]

Looks like an original helmet shell with layers of post war applied paint. It is considered relic condition at this point. looks like it has a large crack in the dome as well. You can see where the white colored paint had seeped through the crack and into the inside of the helmet. The white has to be post war, as I don't think any soldier would have bothered to camo a helmet with a large crack in it. The shells integrity is compromised, and I don't think anybody would want that on their head during a battle! And it looks like the brown is on top of the white.....so thats why I think it has many post war paint jobs.

PG-

[glaubenssoldat]

Paul, I'd agree that this would be considered a relic and it's to my understanding that the helmet was actually dug up somewhere in Germany, but as I didn't get it over there I of course can't be sure

I started to remove some of the easier surface paint and it turns out the white is actually on top of the brown and looks like it was only added in large quantity to that crack in the top of the helmet (as you pointed out)... gonna try paint remover tomorrow

thanks for all the comments guys, I'm a uniform guy and as I said before this is my first helmet purchase, just really wanted to know if it was original and worth going through the trouble of restoring as best possible