All About Pocket Knives

Well ... it looks like at some point I started collecting Military E Tools, Entrenching Shovels & General Fighting Shovels ... how this happened, I really don't know. ... I just started gathering them up from all around my house and realized: ''I have a collection".....

Back in the 1960s folding U.S. Army surplus small shovels were dirt cheap. My father and a lot of other people kept one in the trunk with the tire chains. I use a shovel that is regular size except for its shorter handle with a D grip. It wouldn't work for hanging on an army belt. When the digging gets tough you might find you need a WW-II U.S. Army surplus hand pick-mattock E-tool. Some day I'll learn their correct name. Their handles flared at the far end like the hickory handles for full size picks & matocks so the head could be removed for carry in a sheath. One would go well with your collection.

I still have my father's U.S. Army surplus hatchet and its pouch that hooked on to a GI belt but it belongs in a different thread.

Cool collection, GSP. I like the stamp of the square guy holding a shovel.

GSPTOPDOG wrote: ↑Tue Jun 17, 2025 9:20 pm Well ... it looks like at some point I started collecting Military E Tools, Entrenching Shovels & General Fighting Shovels ... how this happened, I really don't know. ... I just started gathering them up from all around my house and realized: ''I have a collection".....

Nice collection. I dig it (pun intended)

Modern Slip Joints wrote: ↑Wed Jun 18, 2025 5:17 am When the digging gets tough you might find you need a WW-II U.S. Army surplus hand pick-mattock E-tool. Some day I'll learn their correct name. Their handles flared at the far end like the hickory handles for full size picks & matocks so the head could be removed for carry in a sheath. One would go well with your collection.

Hmmm, I would like to find one of the U.S. Army surplus "hand pick-mattock E-tools". Sounds useful and cool Thanks!

CarMan wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 6:00 am

GSPTOPDOG wrote: ↑Tue Jun 17, 2025 9:20 pm

Nice collection. I dig it (pun intended)

Thanks C-Man, R&R and M-Bro's

A few more shovels I have used to stash in vehicles and or take camping, hunting, etc... etc...

This Cold Steel has accompanied me while backpacking around the southern part of Mexico and into Belize. I felt a little more reassured camping on the beach in middle of nowhere and having a little something to swat a few mosquitos if need be......

not short on entrenching tools, gunna have to dig them out

Oh boy I get to be the first person in line to point out an error. First, I will tell my qualifications. In my profession I have worn out a half dozen shovels. I grew up with a man that if he didn't have a shovel in his hand, then he had a hammer. Till I was working with him I didn't realize there is proper and improper ways to use a shovel. Now the nitpicky. There is not a shovel shown in the above photos. They are all spades. Entirely different tools. This older man set me straight on that when I was 10 and he sent me for a spade and I came back with a shovel. The army never called them shovels. They were either called entrenching tools or spades in their training manuals. A quick lesson I feel is due and taught to me by Alvin the older gentleman. A shovel has one purpose only and that is to remove a product from one place and transfer it to another. They have upturned blades to retain the product and upswept handles (known as the Ames bend) to make it easier on the back. A spade is for digging and is usually a stouter almost flat blade with an almost vertical handle. The entirely different tools can be used for either task which further confuses the situation. Whew, got that off my chest. Carry on. Some nice spades shown already. Keep it up. For us "shovel nerds" there is actually a shovel museum that can be viewed online.

these were just lying around at the ready....

never know when you got to dig in