I would guess it's earlier than sicily, I don't see any other boats in the background, or any indication that is an active combat zone there landing in. I am thinking it might be practice landing prior to sicily in NA. Also, the officer to the front is not loaded up for combat and seems to be instructing rather than preparing to hit the beach.

Here is a real one   

After seeing the price climb on this medal, I figured I should post it here.   This engraving on this medal is bad in my opinion.    It mirrors other bad engraving from the 1980's-90s from a known faker in Detroit.  Once you have seen a real one, the bad ones stick out like a sore thumb.   

will do, thanks for the recommendation!

Agree the helmet itself looks fine.  It’s just that strip of white paint, that adds $1000 to the price,  that is in question.

That makes a lot of sense, thanks for the reply!

This image can be found at Getty Images. Getty credits the photo to Keystone - France. It is captioned, "American Marines Landing In Sicily On July 1943."  

Greetings,        I would reckon, like a uniform with a suspect collection of wholly original ribbons/patches; an assemblage of mixed US/French parts on a Mark I Trench Knife is worth the sum total of its parts. Personally, I steer clear of estimates of value as valuation services are not my forte. Plenty, of folks on this forum are more than willing to share their thoughts on value and are usually quite generous in their valuation. As such, I will leave valuation to others.   Best Regards,   V/r Lance.    

KurtA, I, like Mr. Jerry, think this one looks good, but, like you, I'm put off by the fact that there is no stated provenance and that it is on Ebay.  The helmet's chinstrap shows a laundry number of H7087 while the liner has initials that end with the letter 'M'.  So, probably, a post-war put together.  I've been debating whether to make an offer or not, but my better judgement tells me to pass even though the shell may be legit. CG

Thank you pwcosol for that information.  An update to this - I haven't found the elusive 9-20-93 letter but I did find a H. Brett letter dated July 1992.  I could not download the letter because its' classified copyright protected.  However, I did type out the text of the letter and, in pertinent part, one paragraph reads:   "These knives were made only in prototype form and less than ten pieces were produced. (bold highlight mine) All the parts were made in the U.S. including the blades and all were basically handmade.  The knives have no markings on any of their metal parts and no permanent markings on the scabbard,"   I'm not sure how much is "less than ten" - most probably nine, but that's all I have been able to find.   CG