Whats your oldest kit

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neoaliphant

Settler
Aug 24, 2009
736
226
Somerset
What kit do you have thats either really old/vintage or thats youve had for a long time....That you still use

ive got an antique telescope, but that doesnt count as i dont use it as its so poor compared to a modern monocular.....

so my main items are

fisher price childrens canteen from a camping kit i got when I was 5 ( im 48 so 43 years later and i still use it)

esbit hexi stove, mylar sheet, etool , orange survival bag all in use in my various kits....... (all from birthday haul when I was 7....so 41 years old)
 

Pattree

Full Member
Jul 19, 2023
1,318
738
76
UK
This one isn’t easy to answer.

Some of us have what might be called an advantage in that we are older.
Also like many folk I have bought military surplus kit and I love auctions so I have some fairly recently bought old stuff.

My M40 stove was made somewhere between 1940 and 1944. My M44 stove was made in 1964 which doesn’t feel particularly old to me. :)
 
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neoaliphant

Settler
Aug 24, 2009
736
226
Somerset
This one isn’t easy to answer.

Some of us have what might be called an advantage in that we are older.
Also like many folk I have bought military surplus kit and I love auctions so I have some fairly recently bought old stuff.

My M40 stove was made somewhere between 1940 and 1944. My M44 stove was made in 1964 which doesn’t feel particularly old to me. :)

Vintage stove, nice,
That reminds me ive got an old parafin stove from the 50's i think...my fathers camping stove, but i havent used that yet as its the backup for the house....

the ex military stuff is a given, i used some ww1 pattern webbing for my kit when i was a child, did a dartmoor trek with it....

the big question is any kit that youve actually been using for decades...this only apples to us greybeards im guessing.....but interesting if anyone is using the kit they got as children....
 
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Erbswurst

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Mar 5, 2018
4,079
1,767
Berlin
Swiss and Swedish army rucksacks that were made around WW1, German rucksacks from WW2, as well as field bottle, slightly younger Wehrmacht stile BGS equipment, rucksack, field bottle bread bag, tent sheets all from the fifties and sixties, US army blankets from WW2 and a bit afterwards, cotton sleeping bag covers US, Swiss horse blanket of approximately the same age, as well as civil cotton boy scout tent sheets from the fifties. Father's belt knife from the fifties and his deer leather shorts, French army bottle, mug, pouch and rucksacks from the seventies, German army tent from the seventies, shirts from the eighties and heavy belt as well as US and French heavy belts, lighter thinner german belts from the nineties, beause the army didn't issue them before that, eighties German field bottles, nineties German Cordura rucksacks 35 and 65 litres with folding mats, mess kits German, Austrian and Dutch from forties to nineties, civil group alu pots from eighties and nineties and a couple of black German cotton boy scout group tents in several sizes, cotton sea sacks of that age, I think US army, German Cordura bags from the nineties, Opinel Carbone No8 from the eighties, military and civil cuttlery kits of that age, Victorinox knives and other pocket knives. Wooden canoes from the twenties and sixties and GFK canoe from 1990, still swedish made Fjällräven Rucksack from the early nineties and a Hilleberg tent of the same age, German army ponchos from eighties and nineties, as well as German, French and Dutch Uniform pieces from the sixties to nineties of all kind. US plastic bottle from the eighties and nineties with a eighties mug, pouches, belt and compass pouches (ALICE), Fiskars hatchet from the nineties approximately like X7.

Yes, they will make a military museum from my stuff, also because the collection ends with current pieces.

No, I guess my family will continue to use the stuff.

I went through my entire collection during the Covid 19 pandemia and most younger civil eequipment from the nineties and younger went to the garbage bin because it fell into pieces in the storage if not already during utilisation. But nearly all military equipment looks like new although I usually bought it used and used it myself a lot. That's why I recommend to buy military surplus from western armies in good conditions. It usually lasts a lifetime in civil use or much longer.

I am no insane collector. My stuff was bought in order to use it with boy scout groups and was indeed used a lot and is still used regularly.
 
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Springchicken

Full Member
Aug 29, 2005
80
71
60
Northants.
My oldest bits of kit that I still use are my Zero X axe and Northwall X hammer made by Chouinard - now Black Diamond - back in the 1980s. Although enjoying a bit of 'thwack and dangle' is in the past for me now, the axe always joins me on the hills in winter.

On a more bushcrafty note, my oldest thing is my Crusader cup. It was one of the first things I bought and is still used every time I go into the wilds.

Neither are particularly old as such but they all have a good number of stories to tell!
 

Pattree

Full Member
Jul 19, 2023
1,318
738
76
UK
I’m not into knives at all. Anything that does the job in hand will do. Nothing wrong with a lump of Chinesium alloy as long s as I didn’t buy it and it works - but this is just me.

However, I have accumulated (rather than collected) a number of them. This one is from my 14th birthday. (1961). It might be of interest.

It was displayed in Altrincham Sports Shop as a “double edged sheath knife”. I used to carry it openly and took it through customs without comment.

It is of course utterly useless for most things. I eventually blunted the first inch and a half and used it as a roping knife. It worked well on hemp and Manila but how much splicing do you do in a lifetime?IMG_5849.jpeg
 
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neoaliphant

Settler
Aug 24, 2009
736
226
Somerset
I’m not into knives at all. Anything that does the job in hand will do. Nothing wrong with a lump of Chinesium alloy as long s as I didn’t buy it and it works - but this is just me.

However, I have accumulated (rather than collected) a number of them. This one is from my 14th birthday. (1961). It might be of interest.

It was displayed in Altrincham Sports Shop as a “double edged sheath knife”. I used to carry it openly and took it through customs without comment.

It is of course utterly useless for most things. I eventually blunted the first inch and a half and used it as a roping knife. It worked well on hemp and Manila but how much splicing do you do in a lifetime?View attachment 84317

That does look a nice vintage piece

i remember going in to a camping shop when I was about 9, bought a sheath knife, one of the hollow handle ramboesque sawback blade ones, wore it on my belt everywhere for the rest of the holiday, in shops, high street.....no one batted an eyelid, this was 1984...how things have changed
 

Tengu

Full Member
Jan 10, 2006
12,798
1,532
51
Wiltshire
Im not at all sure. Most of my kit is from car boot sales.

I recall someone looking at my folding brass ruler and saying it was Victorian and so over 100 years old.
 
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Damascus

Native
Dec 3, 2005
1,669
197
66
Norwich
From a personal prospective, I was issued an army clasp knife in 1974 and still use it and a US circa 1969 army butt pack I swopped with an American soldier in 1979. Both are still in regular use.
 

Danceswithhelicopters

Full Member
Sep 7, 2004
936
328
Scotland
Great thread idea.

The oldest thing I bought is a 1982 Wenger SAK that I amazingly have never lost and still looks great. Bought on a school trip to Leysin, Switzerland. Can still remember the fact the shopkeeper was doing such a roaring trade selling to Brit schoolboys that he ran out of silver foil to stamp your initials on the scales. No initials for me...still feel the disappointment!

The oldest thing used by me is a Swedish Army Trangia set from the 60's. Unbeatable and will be inherited by a future generation.

I did use a 1944 dated prismatic compass for a while but it has such a large bubble its too inaccurate.
 
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Nic Le Becheur

Forager
Sep 10, 2015
108
19
Ludlow
I have a billhook that's got to be about 100 years old, which I still use for snedding trees and cutting kindling. A British Army knapsack date stamped 1944, and my father in law's old Army bivvy bag and Dennison jacket, both dating back to the early 1950s.
 

neoaliphant

Settler
Aug 24, 2009
736
226
Somerset
I have a french Peugeot firemans axe from the early 1900's, and a swiss army canteen and cup from the mid 1940's I believe.
My oldest piece of kit that still gets used on some static camps, is a John Linwood clockwork roasting jack, dating from 1815-1825.View attachment 84321
View attachment 84322
Hatchets from car boot sales, no surprise they ar e popular
But that firemans axe looks amazing

i remember in about 1982 SAK were getting very popular at school, by 1985 all my friends had them at school, and some of the local thug kids were trying to use them to mug people.....
 
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grainweevil

Forager
Feb 18, 2023
183
225
Cornwall
My oldest in terms of owning it the longest would be a pocket compass with fold-out magnifying lens that my parents gave me when I was seven or eight, so forty-mumble years ago. Highly doubt it was new then either, but no idea of its age. It's been on many a journey with me, some of them quite fantastic sea voyages.

Fantastic in so much as I was sitting in a homemade "ship" in the back garden at the time. :lmao:
 

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