Police are still looking for the priceless helmet stolen at the Drents Museum in Assen in January but Carnaval fans have struck gold at a costume shop in Beverwijk.

The heist has provided inspiration for next weekend’s Carnaval celebrations, with the Cotofenesti helmet expected to pop up on the heads of some of the revellers.

“My husband and I were trying to come up with an original idea for Carnaval and first we thought of making the helmet from cardboard,” owner Astrid de Jong told RTL Nieuws . “But then this man came into the shop with a plastic helmet under his arm and asked it we wanted to rent it out or buy it,” she said.

It turned out the helmet had been 3D printed, De Jong said and following a report in a local newspaper requests for the helmet started pouring in. “It takes 16 hours to print one. We have sold 12 and there’s a couple still in the pipeline but Carnaval starts this weekend so that’s the lot,” she said.

De Jong said the plastic replica is not meant as an insult. “I can imagine that the theft of the helmet is a sad and serious thing for some people but our helmet is just a harmless joke,” she said.

The heist at the museum will be one of many newsworthy issues coming in for a bit of ribbing at this year’s Carnaval, which kicks off on March 1 and ends in a sea of empty beer cans on the following Tuesday. Celebrations are concentrated mainly “below the big rivers” in Noord Brabant and Limburg but towns and cities in the north also participate.

The Dutch tradition is particularly anarchic and increasingly secular and satirical. Towns and cities change their names – Den Bosch becomes Oeteldonk; Bergen op Zoom Krabbegat and Tilburg Kruikenstad.

Each town or village also appoint their own Prince Carnaval, and these days increasingly a Princess Carnaval. On the opening day of the celebrations they are ceremoniously handed over the keys to the town by the mayor. For the next three or four days they are nominally in charge.