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Thursday, August 26, 2010

Swedish Three Crowns


Just a little update on my continuing research into the Swedish zeltbahns and when they were issued and used by the Swedish Army.

I'll start off with the Swedish "Three Crowns" hallmark...........
From what I have been able to determine from a pile of little clues and pieces from numerous internet sites, the use of three crowns by Sweden began in 1942. Prior to that date, a one crown stamp was used.

In regards to the dates that the Swedish zeltbahns that I have were used....................
The zelts were first issued in 1939 and were taken out of service in 1959. In 1959 the shape was changed from a triangle to a diamond.

From what I can tell, the Swedish Army issued the zeltbahns in camo, but did not issue out any uniforms in camo. In 1990, the army adopted camo uniforms using the same pattern, but substituted shades of green for all of the previous colors used in the old zeltbahns.

And for the last bit of "triva" on these zelts..............
The official Swedish term for the zeltbahn is "knappetalt" (with umlauts over the a's), or translated: "button tent".
The soldiers gave them the nick name of "ensamme varg", or translated: "lonely wolf".

"In Danish and Norwegian, they are called: "kneppetelt"." **NOTE: I ran across this previous bit of information in my research, but according to the comment below, I have that term wrong and I thank "M55q" for his correction........... he is a Danish speaker and military collector, so I think we can definitely consider him an expert on this topic :)

Now we're all up to speed on Swedish zeltbahns!

1 comment:

  1. I don't hope we call them "kneppetelt" in Denmark!!! The proper word would be "Knap" = Button = Knappetelt.. Although I haven't heard this being used. It is instead called a: "teltflage" in Denmark.

    Just don't call it a "kneppetelt" if you ever visit Denmark again, you could be very misunderstood and misinterpreted...

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