What kind of folding shovel?

[Fabe]

Hi All,

Just a quick question - what sort of folding shovel is this? German? Looks a bit different...

Thanks!

Fabe

[Fabe]

Anyone?

[guns ltd]

Whats the rest of the handle look like? Any markings? I have 2 US ones that look like this only green.

[Fabe]

Does look like a US one...THX for your reply. I will take some photos when it arrives - a friend of mine got me this via ebay...only these 3 pics were featured there.

[Feuerbach]

Doesn't look like any German Klappspaten I've seen. Should have three ribs, reinforcement strip revetted, and a bakelite nut. Think its not German, but US.

[zwerge]

It looks just the same as my US shovel.

[Danmark]

Yep, US not German. And watch out for the dutch ones that look similar - they have softer ribs - the German klappspaten have sharp ribs and fold back to an angle to keep them away from the body, they do not fold up flat.
Dan

[guns ltd]

Doses it come with a cover? My two US ones have covers. They seem to be somewhat common. The US made a folding one. They are on some surplus markets now. I like the one you have shown. The ones with the handle work better for digging than the folding ones.

[Fabe]

hi - my "mystery shovel" (US?) arrived today from Germany...

I took some photos - I found no markings on it whatsoever. Looks a bit different from the US shovels, if you check all details closely...

It was never painted green (like most US ones), the original black paint is still shows, especially on one side. The bakelite nut is blackish/dark brown.
Otherwise, works perfectly, no rust anywhere...There is a very small dent at the right edge, but looks good overall.

There was a "story" to this also - which is either true or not, noone knows - the shovel belonged to the seller's 90 year old German SS veteran neighbor in 1944 - he did not know what kind of shovel this was, but assumed it was German or "Booty". The starting price was 1 Euro - I won it for 18...

Original text in German:
"laut meines 90jährigen Nachbarn von dem das Teil stammt
handelt es sich bei dem hier angebotenen Artikel
um einen Klappspaten aus dem 2. Weltkrieg
den er gegen Ende 1944 bei seiner Einheit der Waffen XX im Nord Elsaß bekommen haben soll
somit ein ,wie ich denke ,altes original der Wehrmacht"

[zwerge]

That does look different to my Ames model,there were two other US makers,Woods and AF&H,the marks should be stamped on the blade near the rivets,I had to clean paint out of mine to read it.......Pete.