Combloc
Stop Negassing me!!!!!
I picked this up today at the York gun show very inexpensively. I generally don't still buy old field equipment because what's available now has no soul. It's all just boring nylon and the golden era of old world craftsmanship stuff is pretty much over. But when I saw this 1950's German wood covered canteen in essentially unissued condition, I couldn't help myself. The Ritter company started making this model during WWII but stopped , probably before the war ended. Then, in the 1950's they started making it again for the Bundeswehr. You can tell it's not wartime because of the markings on the body and the fact that it has leather straps instead of canvas. However, very early postwar models still had the canvas straps, probably because they were still laying around. Later, the leather would be green. Sometimes the cups are marked and sometimes they aren't. As far as I can tell, the only markings on this entire setup are on the bottle. To my knowledge, nobody has ever reproduced these so I assume it was just never issued. I thought I was done collecting this kind of stuff but I'm a sucker for neat old stuff and this is.....well....old and it's neat! Anyway, in no particular order, here are some details for your amusement.
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