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I picked up a genuine M35 helmet, out of all places, on the freecycle pages a few years back.
Story of provenance, is that it was a capture trophy in Norway by a resistance fighter. It was brought to Canada when the owner emigrated in the early 50's. It was later used as a motorcycle helmet, and heavily over-painted in a red/blue brush-on motif.
The helmet had painted on the inside surface, with what i assume was the original German owner's surname.
I was able to carefully remove much of the over-paint to reveal fragmentary remnants of the original side insignia (no SS runes .. only the Bundeswehr (regular army) shield). Before the helmet had been over-painted, it had evidently been scoured, removing most of the paint/insignia detailing. I cleaned the helmet up, and applied a simple overcoat of matt black to keep corrosion at bay. I left the interior of the helmet, with it's original markings/painted 'owner' name intact.
It has all of the original webbing/liner/strapping in reasonably good shape - albeit somewhat age-hardened.
No value to me, except intrinsic .. I had several relatives that served in WW2 on the home-front, as war-workers and on the front-lines. Two were on opposing sides, in the Italian campaigns.
Not too shabby, for a freecycle item.
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