Austrian Mess Kit / Tin, circa 1980

This last Friday, Sweet Pea and I were over in the "Big City"......... Seattle, and stopped by the local surplus store.  I found a small bin of old Austrian mess kits and just had to pick one up to fill in an empty spot in the collection.

This model of Austrian mess kit is identical to the old German mess kits, with the exception of the code stampings. This kit is stamped with the the code "HV 80", which stands for Heeresverwaltung 1980.  Heeresverwaltung is the tittle of the Austrian Federal Army and 1980 is the date of manufacture.  The other code is U.SCH.  This stands for "Heinrich Ulbricht's Witwe, Schwanenstadt", the manufacturer of the mess kit.  This company was also the manufacturer of many of the Austrian helmets as well.

These are great old mess kits and make excellent replica German kits for field reenacting, in the absence of an original WW2 model. 

If you want to find more info about the Austrian Army, you can jump over to this site here:  http://www.doppeladler.com/da/

Here's the album of photos of this mess kit.