Ken N.'s original listing for the pair:
This is a fairly unique pair of helmets. They were not brought to the US by a single veteran but were sourced by me in two different places some two years apart from each other. (One came from North Carolina and the other from South dakota.) They are both Ckl64 helmet shells. They are both M42 single decal army helmets with 95% paint and 95% decal. Liner s are original, intact and sound. Chinstraps are original; one is marked and the other is not. Both have a name and feldpost number hand painted at the rear skirt. The feldpost number is from a mortar unit which was attached to the Cherbourg defenses in the spring of 1944. Although there is no information on the veteran (s) who brought these helmets home in 1945, it is pretty safe to assume that they were captured at the time that Cherbourg fell to the US VII corps (composed of the US 4th, 9th and 79th infantry divisions). One helmet belonged to a gefreiter and the other to an oberleutnant (who may indeed have been the company commander). The fact that they have been re-united here is by virtue of a remarkable coincidence. Individually, they are wonderful examples of completely honest combat helmets. Together, they make a display which is nothing less than extraordinary. Price for the pair is $4000.00
http://www.germanhelmetsinc.com/helmetssale.htm
What did SD Heer M42s sell for back in 2017 in that condition; about $1500 apiece ? So with the feld post information (.10 worth of white paint) the price has gone up $1,000. Don't tell me there are not smart people in this hobby.
We have two German helmets that were in the
same place during WWII find their way to the states via
2 different vets, and then have them find their way to the
same dealer some 70+ years later from
two different states, and have those period feldpost facts verified by the handwritten information is incredible by itself. But then to realize that the two inscriptions were likely painted by the
same person (same fonts/penmanship/style/spacing/etc..) 70+ years ago is beyond incredible. WOW !!!
But now we have TWO MORE helmets with the EXACT SAME feldpost information as the first two, and also it appears that the information was also penned by the SAME PERSON as the first two ---- well, it is really a stretch to ask me to accept these inscriptions as genuine. These FOUR helmets exist in the realm of the fantastic, the highly unlikely, IMO. Such things almost never happen in the real world. Yet they happen in today's collecting world more often than you would think.
And as with the sham-pain ruined SS helmets, there appears to be no verifiable vet provenance with any of them.
Would not a more credible explanation be that someone here in the states has been painting these up in recent years which are being "found" by the pickers of well known dealers ?