1945 Ammo Pouches RBNr. 1/0750/0112 Matching Set

[Aaron]

Saved from a reenactor blanket sale. A nice pair of single layer backed pouches made by an unknown maker in Stuttgart. Both have mixed stitch and rivet construction (done differently), with one having brown leather ring tab and the other black. One pouch has riveted sides while the other is sewn. One pouch also has a rivet with a different crimping method from all the others. These are my first pair of truly flimsy leather pouches, with my others being relatively thick still. I love the completely botched stitching row on the all black pouch, that has a row of punched holes that were re-punched then sewn.

 

[CanadianAR]

Nice pair. My set of 45 marked pouches are also mixed rivet and sewn.

 

[Aaron]

Nice pair. My set of 45 marked pouches are also mixed rivet and sewn.

Not sure if I already found your thread or not but if not let me know so I can add them to the reference doc, or if they are not posted feel free to do so, would love to see them.

 

[Marcus]

What is the story on the RBN marked black leather ammo pouches that have only 2 compartments instead of 3?

I remember back in the 1990's these would show up occasionally and there was no interest in them because nobody knew - or cared - what they were.

I thought that perhaps they were either some modification by one of the Warsaw Pact nations like East Germany, or ones made post-war by some place like East Germany.

At the time I was not familiar with RBN marked pouches, as all that I had seen and owned up to then were maker marked and did not realize this was a WW2 German marking.

A local gunshop had a mint unissued example of one of these pouches that I could have picked up for a couple dollars if I had wanted it but I passed, not knowingwhat it was.. I did examine it though, and it definitely looked like it was made as a 2 pocket pouch, and was not a 3 pocket pouch that had been cut down and reworked.

 

[Aaron]

The double and single cell pouches appear to be postwar inventions using cut down ww2 ammo pouches, likely for police or border guard use. There is no known documentation to verify any of this, its all conjecture. What I can tell is that no period pictures have surfaced of these pouches during the war (that I know of).