WWII Crap
British Civilian Respirator
Manufacturer: L & B.R. Company, England
Model: General Civilian Respirator
Country: United Kingdom / British Empire
Year: May 1937
Production Run: 1936-1942
Price: £10
Vendor: Private seller via eBay
Shipped from: UK
She looks happy
First impressions
From quite a young age I really fancied owning a genuine WWII mask - specifically a British one and more specifically a mask like the ones my grandparents used to have during the war.
I have heard many a yarn over the years about how these masks were reused for other purposes or abandoned by some when it was a legal requirement to carry them 24/7.
I finally got around to bidding on one recently and here it is.
Normally a mask such as this can fetch around £30 on eBay in good condition. This specimen wasn't listed as being in mint condition but had been on display for a number of years and hadn't been out of its cardboard box.
I won the auction for £10 + £2.95 shipping which didn't seem to bad at the time.
The parcel arrived and it rattled. Something was loose inside the box? I opened the outer parcel to find the original cardboard box inside complete with fragments of perished rubber in the bottom.
It seems that the Royal Mail hadn't been so careful when they shipped it and the journey had made an impression on the fragile face piece. A bit of extra padding between the two boxes might have helped but nevermind.
To be fair though these masks are reknown for being crap when it comes to the long term. They were made to a very small budget and the rubber used was thin and weedy.
Exposure to the sunlight over the years had dried out the rubber at the top of the mask. The mask was stored correctly in its box as per the instructions. Everything not exposed to sunlight has remained in good condition.
The mask itself is very cheap and simple in design.
Thin crap rubber combined with a equally crap acetate visor made up the majority of the mask. At the rear is a crap three point fixing harness which has its adjustments fixed with a safety pin?!.
These were as cheap as chips and in stark contrast to what the enemy were knocking out at the same time. The German VM-40 I reviewed last week is substantially better quality than this.
To see my Deutsche VM-40 review Click Here
13-5-1937 is the date it was made
A little bit about the British civilian respirator
The General Civilian Respirator was originally commissioned in the lead up to the second world war. The government had specified a gas mask which could be mass produced at a cost of 2 shillings a piece - that's 10p in today's money.
Design of the mask was the task of scientists at the famous porton down facility in Wiltshire. Then came the manufacturing of the GCR which began in 1936 at an old dissued mill in Blackburn, Lancashire.
By 1938 30 million masks had been made with a mind boggling 90 million safety pins to fasten them up with!
School kids during a gas attack drill
These masks were distributed to the general population of Britain but this mask was also sent overseas.
In other parts of the British empire such as Malta, Canada and New Zealand the GCR was also adopted.
In Britain it was a legal requirement to have your gas mask in easy reach at all times. Public information films and posters hammered home the message.
Both the British and the Germans had made great efforts to protect their populations from the threat of each others gas bombs - weapons which were never used by either side.
⚠Does the Filter contain Asbestos?⚠
Oh yes! Early versions of the mask supposedly contain blue Asbestos whilst the later models contain white Asbestos. There is also speculation that an Arsenic portion is buried deep within.
It goes without saying that these masks are only fit for display and not to be worn. - I think my mask would fall apart if I tried to put it on anyway. Not worth the hassle.
You wouldn't want to breathe through an 80 year old filter!
Overall I'm quite happy with my first GCR. I don't think I paid over the odds for it despite the damage. It's hard to find a faultless, pristine example these days so I guess I was expecting a little wear and tear and so my expectations were not that high.
Rating: ✅✅✅✅ 4 out of 5
It's a bit tatty and the box is ripped but I like it.
It was manufactured 20 odd miles away from me and so it has a local historic value to it.
Iconic!