Finnish M/38 Gas Mask
This one is quite a rare find, and another lucky purchase. A Finnish M/38 gas mask. The successor to the bulkier M/30, which used a hose-and-box filter system common with many countries' respirators of the period, the M/38 used lightweight cylindrical filters which could be easily swapped out by the user as required. The haversack was also much smaller than the M/30's, making it less cumbersome overall.
This is a pre-Winter War mask, as indicated by the valve housing, which is made of aluminium rather than the bakelite used on later ones. It has a faint date stamp of September 1939. Only 20,000 of these masks were produced before the Soviet invasion on 30th November. The filter is dated 1940, and retains its rubber cover.
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