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MINT WH M42 HELMET with fieldmade camocover...and more!


Manu Della Valle

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Good afternoon one and all,
I don't have too many helmets and I'm sure that this one will raise eyebrows!It's a virtually MINT,barely (if ever!) worn M42 WH helmet with a fieldmade splittermuster cover AND the "poor infantrist's camo device",i.e. the breadbag strap wound around the lid in that very peculiar manner.
The helmet has been found with the camo cover and the strap wound around it.There's no discoloration under the strap but there's some under one of the loops.The leather is perfect but very stiff and there's no oval stamp inside the dome.
This helmet comes from Southern France where a friend of mine found it many years ago.Purist will look upon such a crudely made helmet covers and many "experten" who wouldn't notice a few,IMPORTANT details would dismiss it as a repro/fake/you-name-it,but it's as genuine as they come and the whole set hasn't been in a collection before 1986!The strap was on it to add keeping the cover on in spite of the drawstring perhaps!
I have never stripped the cover from the helmet because the drawstring is totally gone but given the state of the paint inside the helmet and the fact that the liner is original to it I presume that it's in very good nick!
I'm attaching quite a few piccies (hope they're not too many!) in order to let you study all the details.
It's surely nothing to write home about but I think it's a nice,untouched,interesting helmet nonetheless!
Hope you'll like it
Cheers
Manu

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I must confess that I've cleaned the outside of the helmet with compressed air because it was covered with fine dust (some of it still remains in the creases of the breadbag strap!) but I had to!Many friends told me that I destroyed the originality of the lid as I did when I cleaned up the blackened LW tropical boots but believe me...it was cvered in whitish,chalk-like dust/old mold...I've been carried away perhaps and should have left some of it ion the helmet but what it's done it's done and there's no use crying over the spilt milk!
Cheers
Manu

Edited by Manu Della Valle
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Thank you @Mark K.... as an advanced helmet collector as you are I'm quite confident you've noticed some very interesting details on the cover,such as the traces of the older sewings and the remains of a RBNr or a name!

Edited by Manu Della Valle
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That is one cracker of a helmet, with a terrific cover and great liner, it would be great to see the whole helmet uncovered, but I understand a reluctance to remove the cover, but there could be a very good decal hiding under there

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Oh yes I have a tendency to ramble on though at times about details @Manu Della Valle and not always appreciated by some but IMO it is a righteous  cover...please keep me in mind mate if you ever decide it needs a new home it would be most welcome on my shelf...

Regards Mark 

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5 minutes ago, Davejb said:

That is one cracker of a helmet, with a terrific cover and great liner, it would be great to see the whole helmet uncovered, but I understand a reluctance to remove the cover, but there could be a very good decal hiding under there

Thank you @Davejb...you're absolutely right as far as a decal hiding under the cover is concerned but,as you've rightly pointed out,I'm 101% reluctant to remove a cover which not only it has been on the helmet forever but which has a totally frayed drawstring too! the cover is a bit the worse for wear compared to the general state of the helmet,therefore I think that the owner took it off an older helmet,his or someone else's,but given the fairly large size of the lid and the cover being tailored accordingly I think that it belonged to the last owner!

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Seeing its a size 68 shell that liner should be a size 60 or 61, and I would guess its a 61 as it looks like if the cord is pulled together there will still be a lot of space inside. I would,nt worry about blowing the dust off, grit and dirt can actually cause damage to stitching

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1 minute ago, Davejb said:

Seeing its a size 68 shell that liner should be a size 60 or 61, and I would guess its a 61 as it looks like if the cord is pulled together there will still be a lot of space inside. I would,nt worry about blowing the dust off, grit and dirt can actually cause damage to stitching

The liner is a 60 @Davejb!You're right about blowing the dust off,in fact many of the stitches are gone from previous use and if the dust was dried-up mold it would have surely damaged the rest or,at least,done no good at all!I've appreciated your message over on the thread about my Tropical LW boots,I've been calling myself an idiot for decades but I simply HAD to clean them!

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Hi @Manu Della Valle,

That sure is one outstanding M42 and I believe the cover is original and has been on the helmet since the German soldier put it on there :)

D

 

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14 minutes ago, DAK D said:

Hi @Manu Della Valle,

That sure is one outstanding M42 and I believe the cover is original and has been on the helmet since the German soldier put it on there :)

D

 

I think that it had originally belonged to the very soldier too @DAK D...if you look closely you'll notice that there's the trace of the brim of a M35/40 helmet on the edge of the cover!
It's been found like that and I don't even think that the cover was hidden inside and put on after the War because he drawstring is absolutely gone and frayed!
I find it quite intriguing because of the strap OVER the cover...I LOVE it!
:x:x:x:x

 

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Due to the position of the faded line on the cover, I would think that it could have come off a size 70 shell and not only an M35 or 40, but possibly another 42. Also it may have been swopped over because a size 70 shell would have caused the cover rear  to be very near to the edge of the rear skirt and pethaps liable to slipping off

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1 hour ago, Davejb said:

Due to the position of the faded line on the cover, I would think that it could have come off a size 70 shell and not only an M35 or 40, but possibly another 42. Also it may have been swopped over because a size 70 shell would have caused the cover rear  to be very near to the edge of the rear skirt and pethaps liable to slipping off

Quite a noggin!xD

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If someone called this guy a big head, he could,nt argue with them!!!!!!!!

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@Davejb...I wouldn't argue with the owner of the helmet...not unarmed and from inside an armored car at least!:/

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  • Major General

Manu, who cares about the semantics!? 9_9That's a killer lid....I'd be VERY tempted to gently remove that cover to see what's underneath but I fully realise your reluctance to disturb it's originality.

and if you're ever thinking of passing it on, and it DOES have a nice decal, then please let me join the ever expanding queue.....:P...preferably at the front...

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  • 3 weeks later...

If I was you I would have a look at the shell under it :-)

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On 20/5/2016 at 16:31, adlermilitaria said:

If I was you I would have a look at the shell under it :-)

You're right @adlermilitaria,but I'm afraid of damaging the already weal drawstring of the cover!

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Wow. what can you say,, what a great lid, truly super.

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  • Major General
On 24 May 2016 at 12:36, Manu Della Valle said:

 I'm afraid of damaging the already weal drawstring of the cover!

Are you sure it's weal? I mean weally weal? Do you have any provenance on your weakly weal dwawstwing?xD

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I think Bil is being a wascally wabbit, you little wascal!!!!!!!

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  • 9 months later...

A newbie chiming in here--I see this conversation started May, 2016, but it's new to me.  I will repeat what has been better said by others:  WOW, what an incredible helmet!!  When you come across relics in such perfect shape & they pass the "maybe it's fake" test, it's almost too good to be true.  It's as close to time travel as we'll ever be able to do.  To hold in one's hands a historical artifact that has been spared the ravages of time, is truly an experience.

When you spoke of your reluctance to even blow the dirt off of it reminded me of a similar dilemma that I faced with a M1916 Stahlmelm that I now have & will be the subject of a future post.  This M1916 was in very good shape & even had the original M1891 picklehaube chinstrap.  The original hand applied camo paint was intact, except a previous owner, who was also a total idiot, had taken an aerosol can of gloss green paint and added to the camo finish in several places.  It literally made me sick to my stomach.  How could I ever restore this treasure, without ruining the original paint?  While complaining to a friend about this, he told me of an idea that he had seen, and it worked miracles.

In the USA we have Harbor Freight tool stores that sell cheap, imported tools.  They sell a pistol like, hopper fed, sand blaster that when used with compressed air you can sand-blast rust or paint off of whatever you want to paint.  My friend said, don't use sand, use household baking soda instead.  I bought one of the sand blasters, masked the M1916 so the liner would not be damaged, and very timidly experimented with different air pressures & with baking soda in the hopper.  Amazing!!  Carefully I was able to slowly remove microscopic layers of that horrible gloss green enamel until only the original WW 1 paint remained.  Later I took the M1916 helmet to a collector's show and showed it to one of the most advanced collectors in our area.  He told me that my M1916 was one of the finest that he'd ever seen & the original camo finish was superb.  I had to agree, but did not tell him how it was saved.

So this is a trade secret that now you guys know.  A hopeless mess can be saved without destroying the genuine original.

I added one picture below.  More at  future date.

 

M1916 829.JPG

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