M-37 Fallschirmhelm ( original ???? )

[Eric Queen]

I wonder what everyone elses opinion is of the M-37 helmets that started coming out around 1993/94. They originated from a certain Italian helmet dealer, and ended up in many high end collections and reference books. What I find most troublesome is in EVERY case ( the 15 or so that I have seen in collections or for sale ) except the one I know for a fact that is original ( that Mike Stacey picked up from a vet 25 years
ago ) the original thin, orange padding is missing. In all the ones that are floating around out there, there is either the wrong padding ( from an M-38 ) or no padding at all. Here is one that is currently up for auction. What is the concensus of the helmet collectors out there? I have a bad feeling that just wont go away.

[Jos L C]

Hello Eric,
A friend of mine bought a light green double decal parahelmet about a year ago,the type that came after this one.
He paid a lot of money for it,but after inspecting the helmet thoroughly it had some strange things:the aluminium inner ring was not rivited but welded together.
They made the innerliner look old with dirt and grease,the places they couldn't reach were brandnew etc.
The eagle was the thick lined type b.t.w.
A couple of months later there was a military
show in Belgium and a german dealer was there for the first time.
He only sold German parastuff and had a couple of the very same double decal helmets for big money.
Other helmets were camouflaged but light green inside.
I'm not a para-collector myself,but I can't believe that suddenly so many rare helmets are "found" as the story goes.
There are sites on the internet were you can buy fake para helmets that are a little lighter in weight than the originals,but I've read on that site this week that they adjusted that now,they have the same weight this moment.
In my opinion there are floating many,many fake parahelmets around.
They are pretty busy with them here in the west.
Let the buyer beware !
Regards,
Jos.

This may be outdated, but the last i knew all the fake shells were size 70 or 71. Probably the germanhelmets.com site has info on this topic.

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Eric, I too would say these helmets are all fakes. I do not like the second pattern Luftwaffe decals either. Surley these would feature a first pattern eagle to start with?
Cheers, Ade.

[CSP]

Eric:
You and I have had a few conversations privately about this same subject.
For others, I was contemplating purchasing one of the helmets under discussion - had the Italien story attached to it, source to me was a high-end collector, well established dealer, and all. The story with this particular oiece was that it was found in Italy after the war in bunch of stuff that was left over in a storgae area determined to have been excess equipment from Skorzeny's rescue of Musolinni. Like any story - it was a story and while it tended to make one want to believe that a 1937 version could turn up again so late in the war, it really made no difference when the specific discrepencies about the piece were pointed out.
It was a lot of money - a lot of money!
I ended up deciding not to purchase it for two reasons. (1)It was outside my collecting area and (2) For the amount of money, one wants 100% consensus and I could not develop that between two very respected Luftwaffe collectors.

I know little of para helmets - which was a coralary to (2) and the real reason anyone deciding to purchase one of these ought to have it checked out from every possible angle.
Scott