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1950s MP Helmet


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Picked this one up last week, appears to be a 1950s era MP helmet. It has a great look, looks like there was once larger MP letters and a yellow band around the helmet but those have been painted over and a red band and smaller MP marking have been painted on. Has anyone seen any similar painted MP markings on 50s era helmets? I'm  just used to seeing decals used on post WWII MP helmets.

Thanks for looking

-Steven

 

IMG_9084.jpg.ce15ae38f87edff272550e60f7cd20a6.jpgIMG_9086.jpg.f0453e359dcac8cef36f38cdd2e6de3b.jpgIMG_9085.jpg.33b6be16b9d43438f8da52042e008850.jpgIMG_9092.jpg.554ba1c9aef1add7d8eb41641ae214bf.jpgIMG_9087.jpg.b942ef20350b9a7b69c0ae4c74f82144.jpg

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  • 3 weeks later...
Nickman983

I ended up picking this one up from Steven. The paint is a bit rough in some spots but it looks great in hand. Here's some more information on the helmet:

I believe it started life as a fixed bail helmet and the swivel bails were added on as a repair. There are actually three sets of MP markings on this helmet. The oldest is the larger style markings. Sometime after those were painted over a smaller, yellow MP was painted on. Finally the white MP marking was painted over top of the yellow with no repaint between. As fpr the bands there are at least two, maybe 3 different bands in the paint. There's the red band and the yellow band but there may also be a white band underneath the repaint. I'm not 100% sure about the white band just yet.

Finally, the helmet is actually named at least once. It's very hard to make out but on at least one side of the helmet there appears to be a name. So far I've only been able to make out the first name but I'm going to spend some time trying to read what it says underneath the repaint.

 

I've attached some of my own pictures of this helmet to the thread. As of now I have it paired with a white painted WWII liner. The liner was actually once a SP liner but I figure it will fill the roll for the time being until I find a proper MP liner.

 

A few questions for those who are more knowledgeable about MP helmets than I:

When would the large markings have been phased out in favor of the small markings? Any chance the large markings are WWII vintage?

When would the yellow MP lettering have been used and by who?

helmet 01.jpg

helmet 02.jpg

helmet 03.jpg

helmet 04.jpg

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Nickman983

Picture of the overpainted name. Looks like there's potentially 3 lines. So far I've only been able to work out the fist name and a letter here or there.

If I can't make out the full name should I attempt to strip the over paint away from that area to try to get an ID on this one?

helmet 05.jpg

helmet 06.jpg

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Nickman983

Some pictures of the paint. First is the old MP marking coming out from under the repaint

1930430250_helmet09.jpg.f76b172984d12223e0b339841c86837f.jpg

 

Not exactly sure what's on top but you can see some of the older, yellow MP marking on the left side in the crack

1091460136_helmet10.jpg.d6387a35d76e7bd9ae3f7633acd0c8ae.jpg

 

More yellow underneath the current MP marking

1354948632_helmet11.jpg.d0c9ecc8eb66fcda022202f05215684d.jpg

 

Towards the back of the helmet there's some paint exposed in the band. Looks like it goes OD -> white -> OD -> yellow -> red. I haven't found enough white elsewhere to be 100% sure there's a white band underneath the repaint though.

2109425956_helmet12.jpg.a3f27ee16c9becbd589d4f91fc7df257.jpg

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Nickman983

I spent more time looking at the name. I was able to make out the last name. I believe the third line is a serial number but I'm still working on making that out. The first two characters may be "US" but I'm not 100% sure on that. When did the US prefix come into use in serial numbers?

helmet 13.jpg

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huntssurplus
5 hours ago, Nickman983 said:

I spent more time looking at the name. I was able to make out the last name. I believe the third line is a serial number but I'm still working on making that out. The first two characters may be "US" but I'm not 100% sure on that. When did the US prefix come into use in serial numbers?

helmet 13.jpg

 

I believe the US prefix was first used in the 1950's for draftees. I think post-korean war personnel. 

 

Hunt

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Burning Hazard

Nice MP Helmet! I think it's a late WWII-occupation used and then continued service into the 60's where it was repainted and fitted with new chinstraps.

 

Pat

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Nickman983
On 5/21/2020 at 11:52 PM, huntssurplus said:

 

I believe the US prefix was first used in the 1950's for draftees. I think post-korean war personnel. 

 

Hunt

 

Thanks Hunt, that's what I thought but I wasn't 100% certain. 

 

52 minutes ago, Burning Hazard said:

Nice MP Helmet! I think it's a late WWII-occupation used and then continued service into the 60's where it was repainted and fitted with new chinstraps.

 

Pat

 

Thanks Pat! That's kind of the same time frame I was thinking based on the markings. It's one of those helmets where the more I look it over the more I like it. I need to do a bit more work on deciphering the serial number and then start doing some research on an ID.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I've been spending more time looking at the service number and think I may have it, or at least something close.

 

I believe it is US62129132

 

If I understand how service numbers work that would indicate this individual was drafted in the late 60s.

 

That seems a bit late to me so I'm not 100% sure if I've got that right. I guess next step is to try to research that service number and see if it matches the name. Is there any good way for me to do that online or would I need access to the national archives?

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huntssurplus

You would need the archives. Personnel information isn't released for 69 years or something like that. You might be able to give it a go in Fold3, but I can't really think of any other post war service number databases.

 

Hunt

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That's kind of what I expected, thanks for confirming. I'll see if I can't find anything out but I'm not expecting to make much more progress for now.

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