Original U.S. Korean War USMC M1 Helmet Complete with Liner and USMC Cover Original Items

Original Item: Only One Available. This is a very nice example of a Korean War Era U.S. Marine Corps Issue M1 Helmet as used during the Korean War Era and into the early Vietnam Conflict. The shell is a late WWII Produced M1 Helmet, with a front seam swivel bale made by Schleuter. The Helmet comes with an excellent condition U.S. Marine Corps Reversible Camouflage Cover with one of the flaps cut off. The helmet is complete with a late issue, Korean War Era, “High Pressure” liner and a possible replacement leather chinstrap. The complete set is in issued condition, it does show signs of honest wear, storage age, and handling over the decades.

The U.S. WWII M-1 helmet was only produced from 1941 to 1945. The first production batch resulted with over 323,510 M-1 helmets before the start of the American involvement in the war. This helmet is partially heat-lot stamped 26?7, which indicates the approximate manufacture date of late 1945, right before V-E day or after. This helmet is a fine example and still retains all of its original WWII parts and the shell has all original “corked” grain paint with front seam and swivel bails. The chin strap is the correct late war OD Green with blacked brass stamped hardware. The shell and chinstrap are in excellent condition, showing very little wear related to service.

The liner exhibits an excellent amount of original paint, with clean OD7 Olive Drab Webbing secured by “A”-Washers. The sweatband date cannot be found. The nape strap is khaki and is adjustable which dates to late-WWII. As typical for a helmet of this era, it is a mix of parts from various dates.

A very nice example of a Korean War issue helmet USMC helmet, perfect for any collection! Ready to display!

The M1 Helmet
The Ordnance Department selected McCord Radiator and Manufacturing Company of Detroit Michigan to produce the steel M1 helmet bodies. These bodies were made from a single piece of Hadfield Manganese steel that was produced by the Carnegie-Illinois & Sharon Steel Corporations. Each completed raw M-1 helmet shell weighed 2.25 lbs each. The total production of M-1 helmet shells during the war reached 22,000,000. Of these about 20,000,000 were produced by the main contractor McCord Radiator and Manufacturing Company of Detroit. Although McCord was supposed to be the single source of M-1 helmet shells, by the summer of 1942 a second company was enlisted to help the production effort. This was Schlueter Manufacturing of St. Louis, Missouri. Schlueter began production of its M-1 helmet shells in January 1943. Schlueter produced only 2,000,000 M-1 helmet shells during the war (both fixed and swivel).

The early M-1 helmet shells had a set of fixed (static) chinstrap loops called “bales” and a stainless steel rim. These rims were both rust resistant and had “non-magnetic qualities” that reduced the chance of error readings when placed around certain sensitive equipment (such as a compass). In October 1943, issues with the fixed bales breaking off resulted in a change to the “swivel bales” that this helmet has. In 1944, to deal with paint wearing off the very shiny stainless steel rim, the material was changed to manganese steel in October, and then the seam moved to the rear in November.