MILITARIA

Wrap this digital camo cloth tape around your camera, rifle stock, spotting scope, lunch box, selfie stick or brother-in-law and make them all disappear in the woods. Our each is a roll of 2” wide x 33 feet of “Easy-Peel” tape.

Call it a MASK unit. This faux-military “Minor Surgery” kit from Voodoo Tactical® comes in a 7" x 5" x 2-1/2" OD canvas pouch containing: 6” wound probe; 3-1/2” stitch scissors; 3-1/2” tweezers; 5-1/2” bandage scissors; 5” straight and curved forceps; a #3 scalpel handle with disposable blade; pupil flashlight with mm gauge; alcohol pads; antiseptic towelettes; some 5/0 monofilament; and a gram of antibiotic ointment. And remember: reenacting actual combat surgery without a license is still not allowed.

In nylon digital camo, this military radio bag measures 11" x 12" x 6" with adjustable straps on the side panels to pull them in, another to close the top, and a pair of female molle buckles to attach it to something else. Sew it all together, add a strap and you’ve got a great carry-all. Note openings at bottom corners. For you collectors, it’s marked  "APB03 RADIO POUCH SPM1C1-09-F-C002 8465015158636 F190686393 TAMCN NO. C54402F"

You will survive, too, just like Gloria Gaynor, and in the woods, even. But only if you have this U.S. Army manual, cleverly titled: SURVIVAL, Department of the Army Field Manual FM21-76. It's 287 heavily illustrated pages of techniques for staying alive (add your own BeeGee jokes here) including orientation, food & cooking, fire- and shelter-making, rafts, animal, insect and plant recognition, and much more. This is the 1970 edition, but staying alive in the woods hasn't changed a whole lot since then. In soft-cover.

They're back! Those of a certain age will remember being taught to crouch under their school desks in case of nuclear attack. Shortly thereafter, the United States gov't, in its infinite wisdom zoomed about the cityscape plastering yellow and black signs on buildings with basements to designate them as fallout shelters wherein it stored cans of water and radiation meters which were so insensitive that any reading could only mean the past tense of crispiness. We have a quantity of these signs, brand new in the sense that they have never been plastered, but antique in the sense that they are Cold War U.S. Civil Defense originals and may show slight wear from being stored. 10" x 14" , 25 ga. galvanized steel. They have a black base coat on the front over sprayed with orange/yellow reflective paint in the familiar designt. This is a true collector's item fetching $50 and up in antique stores! A tasteful addition to even the dullest basement hangout.

Blank dog tags, ready to punch. Each set measures 2" x 1-1/8" x 1/32" thick in matte stainless steel with (2) ball chains, one 24" long and one 4-1/2" long. You get (2) sets of (2) tags, with (4) chains altogether. Made in the USA.

From the U.S. Navy stock of unused Gob hats (no, we don’t know where that name comes from) or more familiarly “dixie cups,” in white cotton twill. We’ll pick from sizes 7 through 8-1/2 if you’re going for the Cracker Jack look, but if you turn the sides down like Gilligan, one size fits every noggin. Upright, it should be squared up for authenticity. Group discount available for drama teachers staging South Pacific.

That’s where these military overseas caps started out, on Deutsch köpfe. Slightly shorter than the U.S. garrison cap, and with a jaunty curve, front to back, they’re in dark blue-gray with orange piping and a German army insignia on the front. We’ll pick a pair in (2) different sizes 58-63, which is approx 7-1/4 to 7-7/8 on American heads, but the envelope design gives them some size leeway.

These just in, special for military strap aficionados. Right angle olive-drab canvas strap. The wide part measures 17" x 2" and is sewn onto  a U-shaped steel clip with a 13-1/2" long x 1" strap mounted at right angles to it. Both straps have steel ends with (2) 3/16" holes. Quite useful for something, we're sure.

The kind that you hammer into the ground for to hold up your tent. Make that shelter-half, because these are from Uncle. Measure 12" long x 1-3/4" wide in a V-shape, in olive drab steel with a 1/4” bore for your rope, and shoulders to wrap the rope around. Marked 97403-132227 E0136 MFR 92398, which is a lotta numbers for a tent stake, but that’s the gummint for you.

It's a mosquito hat for you, not a hat for a mosquito. Those are too small to stock. This is a Vietnam-era design olive-drab floppy hat with an integrated nylon mosquito net and a pair of lightweight spring-steel hoops to keep the net off your face. Measures 12" dia at the widest and is 15" long with a cord to tighten it below your chin. Unused surplus. It's never seen a mosquito.

Made from heavy, olive drab cotton canvas, this military pouch is Chinese military issue circa 1970s. Measures 9” tall x 7” wide x 3” in a shield shape (narrows at the bottom), and closes with internal and external flaps, both secured with cute little wooden closure. The 1-1/8” wide shoulder strap adjusts from approx 26” to over 50”. These have been flying off the shelves for use as purses. .

Could very well be for a gas mask, but that's just a guess, and we know not from whose military. Interesting, though, and rubberized for your protection. It's olive drab, 9-1/2" x 11" x 4", with hook-and-loop belt fasteners. The belt fasteners are oriented so that there's an 8" x 10" snap-flap pocket on the front, a fold-over closure for the bag itself on one short side with a hook-and-loop catch against the body, and a 4" x 6" pocket with hook-and-loop closure on the opposite short side. Good deal if you need to keep stuff dry. Even better after a few hours in the sun and a good spray with a fabric freshener.

When you need to keep your powder dry, you'll wish you had this army-green rubberized bag from the Dutch military. Measures 12" tall x 14" wide x 5" deep, with tri-fold top flaps for extra waterproofing and heavy-duty embedded feet on the bottom corners. No carrying straps, but it has plastic buckles on the back and sides to add them. Easy conversion to a messenger bag or a pair of panniers.

Don't jump out of an Air France flight without your surplus French paratrooper helmet. Like military steel pots everywhere, but with a more complicated leather chin and head strap system, and some foam padding because of parabouncing around. Adjustable for tete size with a hook-n-loop band. In gloss black with a front section that's had a badge or unit emblem scraped off, so you might want to do a touch-up, or hit the internet for French insignia. Circa 1980s, we think.

Talk inside the mask. This microphone, designed to fit inside an oxygen mask, is brand new, made for the US Air Force in the mid-1980s. NOS microphone, dynamic type M-133/U. Manufacturers part # 4500-WBC DLA900-85-C-098. Cable has MIL-C-5898C-WD-34U USAF and U-173/U connectors. Sorry, folks, that's all we know.

Originally a canteen pouch with two little mouse ear flaps that wrap around the top and snap closed, this insulated olive drab bag could double as a purse or a dog bone holder. Which technically would make it a pooch pouch. Measures 7-1/2" x 7" x 2-1/2". Snap straps on the back let you clip it to your pack or belt.

Our buy of the millennium is this rich, dark-brown leatherette military map/attache case from the Czech army. Measures 11" x 14" in portrait orientation and will expand to approx 3" with an 11" pocket in the flap, (3) interior sections, (2) of them a full 14" deep, plus card, pen and miscellaneous slots and pockets on the inside, plus-plus it has a slide catch with a lock and a teeny key. Best of all, it could have been made for carrying tablets and i-Devices of all sorts, or even books (which are sort of like thick iPads). Has a leatherette handle on top, plus a detachable and adjustable 48" long strap. Hardware is deco-ish bright chrome. Most are lightly used surplus.