Springfield Surplus are offering mystery bundles of militaria by weight. This seemed quite fun so I decided to check it out and ordered the 2kg surplus mix (no clothing) for £19.99, the 1kg mixed army surplus mix for £9.99 and the ‘surplus sprinkles’ consisting of 4 to 6 mixed badges for £2.99. With free postage, the order came to £32.97. The seller said it would be mostly British with a few bits of foreign militaria thrown in. I was curious to see what I would get!

The parcel arrived a couple of days later and the three bundles all came together, so I am treating the whole lot as a single selection. The parcel contained:

• a large DDPM rucksack cover,
• a ‘bag, carrying, Kipling, DPM’
• olive green PLCE utility pouch
• a plastic water bottle from somewhere
• a cotton gas mask bag I am guessing is Eastern European
• a Civil Defence arm band
• Three cloth badges and four metal ones.

So what did I think? Totting up the individual bits, it seems reasonable value and certainly buying from eBay you would struggle to get everything for the price, although at a show you would probably get them cheaper from a rummage box. However of the items, the only bit I really need for my collection was the Kipling bag (which we look at in more detail in a few months time) so I probably wouldn’t have bought the rest unless it was really, really cheap. As it is the bag alone seems to be selling for between £30 and £40 so the rest is just a bonus and it has been a lot of fun seeing what my mystery items might be.

If you want to check it out for yourself, Surplus Kilo’s website is here.