M16 Camo with damage

MG34NZ

MG34NZ

Active member
Picked this up yesterday, its one I missed 32 years ago and it finally came back on the market. As a kid I didnt have enough money to pay the $35 asking price and besides it was damaged and no one was going to rip me off selling me a damaged helmet!
No liner or band but a nice and original bring back item. TJ-TI 68 but only faintly marked so a little hard to make it out. Added some engineers chalk to markings for the pictures.

Regards
Andrew

Andrew

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Nice helmet!! I have a standard M16 with a bullet hole at the front and several shrapnel holes at the top.

Regards,

Edwin
 
Man...a beautiful example, the camo colours are great!! It screams...."I was there" and is obviously a battlefield pickup from a Kiwi who grabbed it on the fly for a souvenier. Can we have an interior pic? That piece is a fantastic piece of History!
 
Thanks for the comments and interest Gentlemen

Here is the interior of the helmet as requested

As I said above I missed out on this helmet when I was a kid, there was also a Pickelhaube (felt Prussian), a pork pie hat and a damaged 98/05s bayonet in the shop at the time. I stayed in contact with the owner of the shop and he remains a good collecting friend to this day, the guy that purchaced the Pickelhaube lived down the road from him and the M16 helmet and Bayonet went to another collector I met through our mutual interests (he also was a great mentor and friend). I always said I would buy the Pickelhaube if it became available again (and the M16 and bayonet) and around ten years ago my friend gave me a call as the owner wanted to sell the Pickelhaube. My other friend with the M16 and bayonet passed away two years ago and his collection is being disposed of through an annual auction. Last year the 98/05s bayonet was on offer (also battle damaged) and this year it was the M16. So for me they were rather sentimental purchases. I need to do a little more homework as I believe the damaged bayonet and helmet originally came from the same source. They are also "local" items in a lot of ways as they originated in Wanganui which is only an hour from my own home town.

I often wonder why a soldier would select a battle damaged souvenir when there would have been plenty of undamaged helmets available at the time. I guess to the person that carried such items halfway around the world they had real significance and they remain today as a reminder of the harsh reality of the hardships endured at the time.

Regards
Andy

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