Help on a canteen..

[CM Alexander]

Hello,

I can not post a pic of the item in which I have a question about, but seeing how's it is a common item, I figured someone would know by my description.

Anyways, I have a blue wool covered canteen. The cup is the alluminum type, painted blue, marked p.pr.bln., there are no other markings on the cup itself. The clip is marked Patent Ritter. There are no markings on the leather harness. Next I took the canteen out and it is painted a clay orangish-red color. It is marked SMM with a 43 below it. The snaps on the wool cover are brass, non magnetic, the clip is magnetic. Also, the screw on cap is the style with the leather fixed to it, it does not use the chain like you see on so may others. What I was wondering is how rare are these to locate. If the luftwaffe did use these, it must not have been for a very long period of time. Anybody have any info based on the info I provided?

Thanks,
C.M. Alexander

[Jan B]

Hi Alexander,

First of all, a big welcome!

Based on your detailed description I would say that the bottle is wartime, but the cover and cup could be postwar West-German police...they had a very similar style of canteens in use. Also the marking on the cup : 'p.pr.bln.', doesn't seems to be original ww2.
Are the snaps painted black? Are they flat?

I could be completely wrong on this, so it would be great to see some pictures nevertheless.

ps : please use the 'search-option' with the word canteen, you will find several threads covering these. Here's the largest thread :

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...light=canteens


Cheers

Jan

[derspiess63]

Welcome aboard,

Jan is right;the cover and cap are post-war while the Red-Oxide primed canteen is genuine,being the enameled-steel version,that can be found in green as well!
Keep on asking when in need!
Manny

[CM Alexander]

Jan, Manny,

Thank you gentelman! Jan, it is great to be back here. Thank you both for the info. Yes the snaps are painted black and they are flat. The canteen seems right on but the cover was what I was not to sure about. I will be sending some pics to a fellow member and hopefully we will get them up here in the next few days.

Thanks a lot guys for the quick information!
C.M. Alexander