M42 SS review
- Thread starter bruce98k
- Start date
et/ckl decal drop is in the 3500 3700 range I think. this falls well below that. Lot # and maker is so important to helmets.. Just like as we all learned who the only manufactures of zf41 rifles were and learning that makes it easy when you see a dot or a bnz zf41. Now we know.. I get sent lots of SE or NS SS helmets of course all bad no need to even look at the decal...
Bruce Id say your fineI will send the decal image to a buddy just to be 100% if you don't have a rock solid yet.
The last known M.42 ckl SS with a factory ET decal is 3318. So if this is 2818 it would fall below that. If it is 3818 or higher it would not.
I'm not quite sure what you are saying here.....are you stating that SE marked helmets were not used by the SS, or???
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Thanks.
All the SS helmets I recovered from the SS complex at Dachau back in the early and mid 1970's were SE marked.
Unfortunately, due to the effects of rust and weathering, fire if they were in the top part of the pile of Dachau stuff that got burned, and being buried afterwards whether burned or not, there was no discernible original finish on them, much less any trace of decals, just rust. Most were just shells in pretty rough shape, a few (the ones at the bottom of the burn pile) still had liners although in bad shape.
All the Allach porcelain was broken too.
Interestingly, there were also a couple Italian helmets in with the other artifacts, these were smashed flat and also had no finish left, just a coating of rust.
The helmet in the photo is one my uncle got out of one of the barrels of them in the former SS camp, which was the U.S. Army's "Camp Dachau" at the time. It was later turned over to some kind of Bavarian or federal police...I forget which. They used a small portion of the facility, and the rest was abandoned.
The paint on the helmet in the photo is not original, that's something I did back in 1971 (hey, I was 14 years old, and didn't know any better than to leave stuff original, as found, and not dick with it trying to "restore" it.
I got that helmet from my uncle in 1971, a couple years later when I was back in Dachau for the summer and the U.S. Army had turned their facility back over to the Germans, I went looking to see if I could find the barrels of helmets, but had no success. I did discover the burn pile though, which was in the old SS training grounds that were retained by the U.S. Army as their "Riverside Golf Course".
There was a large and deep old pond (it looked man-made or at least enhanced if it was a natural feature, maybe an old SS swimming pool) there at the SS training grounds/U.S. Army Golf Course, was used as a fishing pond then, and I always wondered what kind of goodies might be buried in the mud at the bottom of it......oh, how I wished I had one of those large powerful magnets that you can tie a rope to and go treasure hunting. or should I say "fishing", with.
All the SS helmets I recovered from the SS complex at Dachau back in the early and mid 1970's were SE marked.
Unfortunately, due to the effects of rust and weathering, fire if they were in the top part of the pile of Dachau stuff that got burned, and being buried afterwards whether burned or not, there was no discernible original finish on them, much less any trace of decals, just rust. Most were just shells in pretty rough shape, a few (the ones at the bottom of the burn pile) still had liners although in bad shape.
All the Allach porcelain was broken too.
Interestingly, there were also a couple Italian helmets in with the other artifacts, these were smashed flat and also had no finish left, just a coating of rust.
The helmet in the photo is one my uncle got out of one of the barrels of them in the former SS camp, which was the U.S. Army's "Camp Dachau" at the time. It was later turned over to some kind of Bavarian or federal police...I forget which. They used a small portion of the facility, and the rest was abandoned.
The paint on the helmet in the photo is not original, that's something I did back in 1971 (hey, I was 14 years old, and didn't know any better than to leave stuff original, as found, and not dick with it trying to "restore" it.
I got that helmet from my uncle in 1971, a couple years later when I was back in Dachau for the summer and the U.S. Army had turned their facility back over to the Germans, I went looking to see if I could find the barrels of helmets, but had no success. I did discover the burn pile though, which was in the old SS training grounds that were retained by the U.S. Army as their "Riverside Golf Course".
There was a large and deep old pond (it looked man-made or at least enhanced if it was a natural feature, maybe an old SS swimming pool) there at the SS training grounds/U.S. Army Golf Course, was used as a fishing pond then, and I always wondered what kind of goodies might be buried in the mud at the bottom of it......oh, how I wished I had one of those large powerful magnets that you can tie a rope to and go treasure hunting. or should I say "fishing", with.
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mauser99
Senior Member
A lot has gone into this over the last 10years . What I see is a m35 you can see the apple green underneath. The green on top looks to me as a later type green used on m40's and re-worked shells.
SS Dachau was an SS camp and manufacturing and other things were done there also. Helmet re-furbishing could have also been something that was done there. There was another or more in Poland.
With the large amount of refurbished German helmets out there Id say it was quite expansive. There had to have been refurbished SS helmets I'm not saying there weren't just that NO factory SE or NS legit helmets
have ever been encountered.
The fake Sham-pain-ruin lids were targeted from SE and NS police helmets IMHO and late Ckl no decal helmets.
Ignore the green paint, I did that, as well as the black paint.
At one point I had this helmet done up as a German Army helmet to go with the Gebirgsjaeger uniform my grandfather gave me because I was able to acquire a set of army decals but not any SS ones at the time, before that I had it painted up as a Luftwaffe helmet.
When I got the helmet, it had no original finish remaining, just a coat of moderate rust with significant areas of moderate to deep pitting. If I were to acquire such a helmet today, I would not aggressively de-rust and refinish it like I did, but in 1971 I was 14 years old and the world and the collecting community were a lot different then, as was my knowledge and understanding of things.
Attached are a couple more photos of the helmet. Ignore the decals. Ignore the paint. Like I said, I did that.
The above photo and the 2 attached here of my helmet are offered only for the following things:
This helmet came from the SS complex at Dachau, and was found there in 1970 by my uncle who gave it to me in 1971 while I was in Dachau Ost visiting family for the summer - my grandmother was on the Dachau city council at the time, later she was mayor. There were a few barrels full of these helmets, this was taken out of one of those barrels, I was told, and have no reason to doubt.
It is marked SE 64, and I believe the stamped vent holes make it an M40 helmet. There is no visible lot number on it, perhaps it was located in one of the areas that were heavily and deeply rusted, and thus was eaten away by the rust.
A couple of years later while exploring the grounds of the former SS complex surrounding the concentration camp, I found where a lot of SS stuff from the camp had been piled up and burned.
Among the items I recovered were a number of helmet shells. As I recall, all were the same type as the one I still have, except I recall one with no folded rim at the edge, which would be an M42. It was in such bad shape, as were most of the ones I found, that I left it there.
I did bring several of the better ones home with me. I didn't place a lot of value or significance on them, as I figured I could always dig more up next time I went to Germany. So I sold or traded them off. If anyone here knows Bill Lee, who used to be quite well known in the Southern California militaria and arms collecting community, he got a couple of them from me. I don't know if he still has them, the last time I saw Bill was about 20 years ago at the old Great Western Gun Show in Pomona, CA.
All the helmets I found there were SE marked. Back then I didn't know what that signified, there wasn't the information available that there is now, so I thought that it might have been an SS specific marking, or even a Dachau specific marking.
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Hercules
Senior Member
Helmet Lot Number Database
I don't collect helmets. I was helping someone with their helmet. Here is a database I found on helmet lot numbers. Interesting that it lined up well with what was discussed here. If you don't own the lot number book then this might help.
https://germanhelmetvault.com/lot-numbers-database/
I don't collect helmets. I was helping someone with their helmet. Here is a database I found on helmet lot numbers. Interesting that it lined up well with what was discussed here. If you don't own the lot number book then this might help.
https://germanhelmetvault.com/lot-numbers-database/
I remember one of the surplus / etc. dealers back in the day, like the 70s-80s, probably earlier too, were selling these helmets with such decals.
https://alexanderandsonsrestorations.com/helmet-grinning-skull-short-history-danzig-police-helmet/
https://www.reddickmilitaria.com/wwii-german-helmets/ww2-german-helmet-decals-ss-death-head-pair/
https://www.kelsmilitary.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_code=GHD-007
https://alexanderandsonsrestorations.com/helmet-grinning-skull-short-history-danzig-police-helmet/
https://www.reddickmilitaria.com/wwii-german-helmets/ww2-german-helmet-decals-ss-death-head-pair/
https://www.kelsmilitary.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_code=GHD-007
I'm bringing a couple of the posts here with the photos of my SS helmet and a couple other itens from Dachau up current, to use in a listing for them.
