Finnish M40 Helmet 69W Wartsila

[Nozo410]

Hello everyone,

today I want to show my Finnish made Copy of the Swedish M37, the Finnish M40 Helmet produced under licence at Wartsila Oy. They were made in two Shell Sizes 69 and 75. Shell Size 75 is belived to be made only in very small numbers compared to the Size 69 Shells.

I don't know many Countries that used that many different Helmet types than Finland. During the 20s they used French M15 Adrian, Russian and Finnish Manufactured Sohlberg Helmets and pretty much all different types of German and Austrian WW1 Helmets. During WW2 Finland had a huge need of lots of Steel Helmets, they made a huge Order of German Helmets but do to Political reasons they ended up with getting Hungarian M38 Helmets, they also got sent Helmets from the Axis Powers and Sweden like the Italian M33, Czechoslovak M32, Swedish M37 and a few Swedish M26. The Finnish M40 is from what I know the only WW2 Finnish Domestically manufactured Helmet.

The example shown here is just in beautiful condition, from looking at other examples everything on this Helmet should be in WW2 condition.









Other Helmets I used for comparison.
Finnish Wartsila M40 Helmet
Wartsila M40 helmet biggest size
Finland M40 - Brendon's Helmets
Original Finnish Winter War Era Model 1940 “Wartsila” Steel Helmet - C – International Military Antiques
Finnish M40* – Steel Helmets of the World Wars
Dragoon Militaria | WW2 Finnish army M40 Wartsila steel helmet - 69W

Best regards
Nozo

[Jack59]

Hi Nozo,
The Finnish M40 is a classic "must have". Originals are scare & expensive, so faked ones have been around, we have to be carefull. 3 days ago I've asked a seller for photos of the stamping of a Finnish M40 for sale, never received any photos & the helmet vanished suddenly. Anyway your M40 is very nice. Thanks for showing.

Also used by the Finns earlier was the French Adrian M15 & also the Russian M17 "Sohlberg" helmet manufactured in many Russian plants including two in the Great Duchy of Finland (then) being G.W. Sohlberg & V.W. Holmberg. These helmets were later used mostly by the Finnish Civil Defence.
Source:
World War Helmets - Casque Modele 17
World War Helmets - Casque Modele 15

Regards
Jack

[Nozo410]

Hi Jack,

it was a Helmet I really wanted to get my Hands on. The very important thing about this Helmet is the Stamp, the Finns got around 20.000 of the Swedish M37 what makes the Finnish used M37 ones even more rare than the Finnish Manufactured M40. From reading on this Forum only the 72L41 or 72S41 Stamped ones were for Export to Finland. Found a Swedish helmet either M37 or Finnish copy M40 . So yes it's as you say, you have to be carefull because of faked ones.

I'm currently looking for a Finnish M62 and even that one is hard to find these days.

I saw a black painted M15 Adrian with Sohlberg Liner sometime ago, very interesting Helmets for sure. Thanks for the Informations on the Russian M17 Sohlberg, most examples I saw had black Civil Defence Paint. I saw also Austro-Hungarian used Russian and Finnish M17 Sohlberg Helmets that they used do to a lack of Helmets.

Best regards
Nozo

[Jack59]

Hi Rozo,
Here is a period photo of a Finnish squad helmets,
seen is a good assortment of helmets.



Photo credit: "SA-kuva"

Best regards
Jack

[Nozo410]

Hi Jack,

very interesting Picture, I can see 2x Czechoslovak M32 the one in the middle looks larger it could be a Shell size 85 Helmet. Also note that the Czechoslovak M32 was intended to be used with the 3 Split Pins infront, on many Pictures I see Finns wearing it basically backwards but in this Picture the 3 Split Pins are infront how they were intended to. 1x Italian M33, 3x M37 or M40, Swedish M26 and Hungarian Export M38. Thanks for showing it shows how they pretty much used all different types of Modern Helmets just along each others.

Best regards
Nozo