NVA Canteen with Strichtarn Pouch, Surplus

Achtung! We got something spezial hier. An unused Nationale Volksarmme (NVA) canteen with a Strichtarn pouch and a greenish-grayish metal cup. Apparently, the Wall came crashing down so suddenly that these epic canteens got stuck in some gloomy bunker to wait for the new dawn. Luckily it never came so we could complement our canteen selection with this fantastic specimen. Put your pfennigs together and get it before the Stasi perspektivagents come back from death to haunt you.

Features

• Includes: plastic canteen, metal cup, and camo pouch
• Canteen volume: c. 0.7 L. (23.7 oz)
• Cup volume: c. 0.2 L (6.8 oz)
• Total weight of the set: c. 240 g (8.5 oz)

We have had these canteens before but in used condition. Now, our treasure hunters struck gold and found some that had never been issued to troops - the items still might have some scuffs from laying in piles. This is the newer model that was used until the fall of the Berlin Wall. (There technically was an even newer one, but that never really became a thing until the system collapsed.) The older model had an aluminum canteen, a woolen pouch, and a round metal cup. If you wonder why this looks kinda familiar, it is very similar to the WWII German canteen system but with an East German plastic touch.

The canteen comes with a pouch in the East German Strichtarn camo pattern. Designwise, it is one awesome pattern, but when you think about practicality, the only environment where it probably blends in is hyperspace. DDR shipped their Strichtarn gear to African communist guerrilla troops, and there it was also known as "rice fleck". The pouch is fastened around the canteen with snap fasteners, and it features a strap made from some Ostalgic wonder material, which is used for holding the whole package together.

The flat transparent plastic bottle is very compact yet surprisingly spacious. We thought that it would fit a lot less than it did. The oval aluminum cup has foldable handles plus a loop through which the cup is fastened on top of the canteen using the strap found on the pouch.

Condition

Unissued German Democratic Republic army surplus. These are decades old, so they can have some warehouse dust and other scuffs from decades of storage.