Shaving Cups with Trench-Art

Some times while metal detecting and digging up a signal in an old wehrmacht camp I have been rewarded with a soldiers shaving cup. I am actually not hundred percent sure that they were shaving cups or what, and were probably also used as drinking cups and whatever other use a soldier could find for it.

What is very common with these metal cups, made from a low quality aluminum-zink alloy, is that they most of the times are decorated with so called trench-art.

In their spare time soldiers personalized these items with names and illustrations, reminding them about home, a dear one and other positive memories.

I am also fairly certain that some soldiers even had set up small cottage-industries, producing artsy cups they could sell or trade.

The best example of this I have came out of the ground during two different seasons, and in two different gebirgsjäger camps being several kilometers apart. It was two such cups with the exact same decor, clearly made by the same hand.

I really like these finds as they are so unique and personal. Sadly they are often very deteriorated due to the low quality alloy, and many times I have pulled completely rotted and unsavable ones out of the ground, which always is extra frustrating when one can see that they had interesting engravings.

Below you can take a look at the cups I have managed to collect so far.

Thanks for reading :) I wish you a great week :)

1:

These were found kilometers apart and have the same decorations of plants, birds and animals.

A hare or rabbit

A bird on the top of the cups

Norwegen 1945 on the bottom of the cups

plants and a bird

The same animal on the bottom of both cups

one of the cups is in worse condition than the other

Both made by the same guy

Norwegen 1945

Norwegen

2:

Zum andenken 1945. (To the memory of 1945). This has decorations of a lady, a horse and the midnight sun between mountains, a classic design.

zum andenken 1945

decorated with midnight sun, a ladys face and a horse

a horse

A womans face

zum andenken 1945

1945

3:

A fox or a squirrell? Not easy to tell what the artist meant to carve on this cup that also have the face of a man.

The profile of a person.

A bird

bird

animal

a face of a person

4:

Zum andenken Norwegen 1945. Decorated with a warship, birds, the midnight sun and a lighthouse.

Decorated with a warship

A warship and Norwegen 1945

details of the ship decoration

A house and lighthouse

Birds engraved at the top of the cup

the lighthouse

5:

This cup is engraved with the midnight sun, a house and some flowers. It also has a word carved with letters that resembles runes and reads "Nord".

Nord

flowers

This word is interesting, did the artis try to make runes, or was he simply illiterate?

it has mountains carved

and a house

6:

A piece of art. One can almost recognize the mountains and the site where the motive is viewed from that summer day in 1945.

the polar sun and norge 1945

A girl enjoying the sun

Locals can recognize the mountains

depicting a nice summer day

the fjord and mountains

Too bad the cup is squashed

7:

simple flower decorations

I rescued this from a garbage container

This nicely decorated cup I rescued from a garbage container. It has flowers and patterns all the way around.

8:

My favorite cup. Probably made by a Red Army POW, and the best is that it is named.

A heart with a dagger through, inside the heart is alcohol and a gun and above it looks like a windo

Engraved with a name and adress: Petr Pushin, Isakovi 2.

Isakovi 2 might be a street adress

Anchor with the red star and 1944

the heart

9:

Two wrecked and rotted cups. This shows how frustrating it can be finding cups that almost has returned to their molecular state. Falls apart by the touch and one can see they were full of interesting engravings.

Three decorated shaving cups found in the same pit.