My triple decal M42 helmet

[joetauchretter]

Hello,

     I like to show you my triple decal German M42 helmet with original paint . 

There are three decals on this helmet , OK they are not Factory original decals but they are original to the second owner of this helmet !

this helmet was captured by an American soldier and he liked it so much he had it mailed back to his family in New York .

the top decal is the mailing label for the address in New York . That's right he applied the mailing label directly to the helmet and mailed it back to the states without a box or anything ! The other two labels are very interesting and deal with captured military items . These labels state than officer has seen the items and declares that this is a German Helmet and no US government property is being shipped in the mail . You could mail home almost anything , a tiger tank if you wanted but not a US Army salt shaker ! 

      The paint is original . Sadly the leather liner dried up long ago and has crumbled and fallen off of the helmet .

[Brett Hendey]

What an amazing story!  Thank you for posting it.  It would boggle the mind of anyone now employed by the South African Post Office.  They could all guarantee that such an item would never reach its destination.

Regards

Brett

[Chris Boonzaier]

Thats a pretty cool helmet....

I wonder if many chin straps did not get lost along the postal route?

[joetauchretter]

Hello  

   As long as the item or items were not US govt. property and was inspected by an officer you could send home just about anything you wanted . I have a friend who was in Iraq and his job was to inspect all postal packages and mail . His job  was to look for sand ! Soldiers wanted to send home small containers of sand as a souvenir of their time over there and .......NOPE ! All sand was confiscated . How times have changed WWII you could send home a box full of Lugers and today you cannot send home grains of sand ! 

   Anybody else have items with capture papers or postal labels like my helmet ?

 

joe 

[Paul R]

What a great helmet!  The bringback stickers add to the story.  I wonder at what point the leather fell off?  

[joetauchretter]

Hello 

     This is another item i got from an old buddy of mine , it was hanging on the wall in his house since the 1950's . The three shipping decals are made from paper and the black ink faded from direct sunlight . My buddy said over the years the leather dried out and when someone would take the helmet off the wall to look at it leather dust and small parts would fall off . At 86 my buddy does not quite remember exactly but he thinks about five years ago he finally took out the dried out leather remains so nobody would feel bad like they broke his helmet when they looked at it .

 

joe