The book is very good and well worth the money, but museums do emd up displaying old copies on occasion . I know one armourer, now pretty much retired, who was asked by The Met to register his various marks he used over the years with them as they came very close to displaying his work as original a good number of years back as they believed it to be original until some one in the restoration staff recognized the makers mark on it.
The helmet set/group whatever you prefer to call it ( i've seen them on the market for the better part of ten years I'd guess ) may in fact even be originals, or at least assembled in whole or in part from original elements. The consistan occurance of some thing so fundamnetal to the construction of the helmet as having the cheek plates installed backwards on every one i've encountered, including the example I used to own ( the one that set me to wondering to begin with ) is something that would and did simply lead me to wonder if in fact they were, original, or assembled from old elements for sale ( a common practice in 19th century and earlier 20th century auction houses. I owned at one time an arm and spaulder assembled from the rebrace of a later 15th century arm, riveted to a 1520's-1530's maximillian spaulder, that had been reassembled missing a lame ) or possibly well done reproductions. Any could be possible and my opinion is far from hard fact, but based on my time as a hammerman and collector it was what I was set to wonder.
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