M35 DAK W Painted Swastika

[langemarck]

It's a nice looking helmet and whatever it was used for is perhaps forever lost in history or... who knows one day something will appear to give us more clues.
Just enjoy it for what it is.

LOL, was thinking the same here!!! Not a helmet I would spend a lot of money on it, but in some kind of way I do like it. My guess would be vet art too.

[fader107]

Conversely, adopting your "outside the box" thinking pretty much excuses every fake as being period made. I can understand a dealer or seller wanting to adopt this way of thinking, since that way they can push virtually everything and anything as "real", but for purposes of collecting, it is always advisable for a collector to be conservative.

Well said

[RonR]

A similar helmet, but no doubt "GI Art"......




.........

[RonR]

ooo

[Paul.B.]

Neat helmet Ron.
Those damn dispatch riders seem to everywhere

[clestuff]

Great helmet! Obviously GI art. I don't see how it could be placed in the same category as my helmet unless all painted swastikas are the same. Was the swatz done with a stencil and metric in dimensions? Lets not forget the "flag bearers" mentality. Soldiers who are so patriotic they are proud to bear their national emblem and don't care or even give thought to making themselves a "target".

[ROBB]

Ron yet another really great helmet . Despatch or not they are both really cool lids.Rob

[HAF]

Great helmet! Obviously GI art. I don't see how it could be placed in the same category as my helmet unless all painted swastikas are the same. Was the swatz done with a stencil and metric in dimensions? Lets not forget the "flag bearers" mentality. Soldiers who are so patriotic they are proud to bear their national emblem and don't care or even give thought to making themselves a "target".

Sir did you was ever in army? there are some rules what you can do or what not with your equipment ,any army has near the same rules abaut nice helmet here but swastika is veteran stuff here

[bigschuss]

Great helmet! Obviously GI art. I don't see how it could be placed in the same category as my helmet unless all painted swastikas are the same. Was the swatz done with a stencil and metric in dimensions? Lets not forget the "flag bearers" mentality. Soldiers who are so patriotic they are proud to bear their national emblem and don't care or even give thought to making themselves a "target".

Despite all of the evidence and opinions to the contrary, you honestly can't imagine a scenario other than the one you've concocted (which is highly improbable) to explain this helmet? Let's say a bored G.I. with the 12th USAAF stationed in Bizerte finds this helmet and paints on the swaz and takes it home as a war souvenir? IMHO, that's a way more probable scenario. Thinking outside the box is one thing. Fabricating all kinds of fanciful and titillating stories...

My 2 cents. It's your helmet....and it's a nice one. You certainly are free to believe what you want about it.

[C. Roelens]

Neat helmet Ron.
Those damn dispatch riders seem to everywhere

yaa, but, this dispatch rider must have also trained as a medic because he painted the swastika on top of Ron's helmet with red paint. This would alert the U.S. B-17 Bombers not to target him...

[clestuff]

Sir did you was ever in army? there are some rules what you can do or what not with your equipment ,any army has near the same rules abaut nice helmet here but swastika is veteran stuff here

Yes sir, I did serve in the United States Army, did you? I don't remember any rules about your helmet camo cover after basic training. You should have seen all the things painted on my brothers helmet when he came home from Vietnam! He didn't paint them on after the war! I don't know about the armies of the rest of the world but US combat soldiers were allowed to paint or draw just about anything they wanted on their helmets, including [and did] swastikas... What? Germans didn't alter their helmets in WWII??? To me, that notion is just silly. Could you imagine a German soldiers commanding officer ordering him to remove a swastika from his helmet that he proudly painted on? How would that look? Why do you think so many DDs survived? It wasn't enforced. Thanks for all the kind words about my helmet. I really like it too!

[Dom]

As I said at the start, pointless arguing with someone who literally makes stuff up to compensate for their lack of knowledge both of this area of collecting and the nature of knowledge and what can be known or considered to be true, as well as a lack of knowledge regarding critical thinking and valid forms of logic.

1000s of examples of Vet art items like this
0 examples of period done items like this

What conclusion does the OP draw from this? That his helmet is an example of a Vet art piece? No of course not, he draws the conclusion that his helmet is a super rare example of a period done piece.

In insisting that the "metric" dimensions of the swastika are proof of it being done by a German soldier the OP fails to understand that pieces like this were often done by locals and sold to soldiers as souvenir pieces, as evidenced by the 1000s of post war German camo helmets painted up by souvenir sellers in europe post WW1.

His argument is based on errors of fact compounded by errors of logic,

1) If it is a Vet art piece, it was painted by a Vet
2) All Vets used the imperial system for measurements
3) The swastika is metric

Conclusion; it cannot be a Vet art piece

Really? Two faulty assumptions followed by a "fact" leading to a false conclusion.

The OP seems to misunderstand the term Vet art and seems to think that this means all such items were painted by Vets instead of it meaning as it does, that it was painted for Vets to take home as a souvenir (after suitable payment had been made) So the first part of his argument is factually incorrect.

He assumes all vets used the imperial system,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catego..._United_States

Thats a list of artillery pieces used by the US in WW2, starts off all imperial but then what happens? Oh no! It goes metric! Bang goes the second part of the OPs argument (see what I did there? artillery? bang?)

See the attached pictures, an Allied picture book of german vehicles, whats that in the back? Two rulers? One imperial and one metric? NOOOOOO! That could never happen, or at least not according to Clestuff. Its almost as if people in the past were capable of switching between two systems of measurement, unbelievable but there it is, proof that it is true. Proof in black and white as well so nice and simple to understand. Whats more, the book was for troops fighting in the area from which this helmet may have come.

So if the first two parts of the argument are demonstrably false, then it follows that any conclusion formed on those arguments does not have a sound basis.

What next? That correlation means causation? Sorry I made myself laugh there. very rude to laugh at your own jokes.

Nice helmet shame about the owners claims for it as it actually devalues the piece which I would be happy to own.

Dom

[clestuff]

Dom,
Thank you for taking the time to put together such a detailed argument. You must have a lot of time on your hands [wish I did]. But, if you read my comments I think you will see I said "I think it may be period...because". I never said anything was "proof" of anything. Just offering evidence to provoke thought is not a claim of proof. If you are going to present a counter-argument, at least read what I said. And, I really dont think there are zero examples of original helmets with hand painted swastikas on them.


How's this one for you? I'm sure it will inspire another imaginative response from you. It looks to me like the camo was painted around the swastika!

Take care any happy collecting!

[WalterB]

Dom,
Thank you for taking the time to put together such a detailed argument. You must have a lot of time on your hands [wish I did]. But, if you read my comments I think you will see I said "I think it may be period...because". I never said anything was "proof" of anything. Just offering evidence to provoke thought is not a claim of proof. If you are going to present a counter-argument, at least read what I said. And, I really dont think there are zero examples of original helmets with hand painted swastikas on them.


How's this one for you? I'm sure it will inspire another imaginative response from you. It looks to me like the camo was painted around the swastika!

Take care any happy collecting!

Still waiting for a period picture showing a German WWII combat helmet with a large swastika painted on the front like yours....

[helmetbuyers]

Still waiting for a period picture showing a German WWII combat helmet with a large swastika painted on the front like yours....

Maybe it once belonged to Hermann Goering when he visited North Africa?

He liked to stick out of the crowd with fancy uniforms.

Nice helmet either way... but... I feel it's vet art.

In my opinion... the helmet being a rare camo... the art hurts the value... but... if it was a "common helmet"... say a no decal M40... it would add to the value (for some collectors).

Robert

well known period photo enclosed.