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Shaving Cups with Trench-Art

  • Writer: Inka
    Inka
  • Nov 30, 2025
  • 2 min read
trench art lighthouse on shaving cup germany ww2

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:


Two shaving cups with same decor
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
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:


trench-art of a squirrell ww2
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:


trench art cup zum andenken norwegen 1945
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:


trench art cup Nord
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:


norge 1945 trench art
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:


red army soviet trench art navy motive 1944 pow art
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:


rotted cups full of engravings.
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 cups found at once
Three decorated shaving cups found in the same pit.

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