Don't spend a small fortune this Halloween! Get a £2.50 Polish gas mask!
Manufacturer: Faser SA, Poland
Country: Poland
Price: £2.50 + £3.30 postage each
Source: seller Bea27storee on eBay UK
Year: Beige mask = 1985. Grey mask = 1989
Size: Beige mask = 2. Grey mask = 3
Condition: New/Unissued surplus. Filter still sealed
Shipped from: Wales, UK
Where can I find one?: Link to the ebay deal HERE.
Halloween?
Apparently wearing a gas mask on Halloween is the thing these days. I have no idea why? I mean I don't remember any ghouls or monsters ever wearing a gas mask but there it is. Perhaps people have taken to them because they might be considered scary looking? Anyway, my old friend the polish gas mask peddler on eBay has come up with a few Halloween style mask deals to cater for this new trend.
A few of his listings feature the Polish MC-1 "Dzik" gas mask and the one which caught my eye the most was the £2.50 "rusted up" kit.
Basically he is offering a complete MC-1 kit, that's the face piece, filter and Haversack for only £2.50 + £3.30 postage!
Normally you can get an MC-1 for around a tenner but I have never seen one for sale at this low price rust or no rust. I figured that I could live with a bit of rust. And having already owned a MC-1 and a Czech CM3 (which is basically the same) it's only likely to be the eye pieces that would have rusted as everything else is either plastic or bakelite. I'm not going to grumble at some oxidation at that price!
Just to familiarise ourselves with this mask, The Polish MC-1 kit was a mass produced civilian respirator produced from the 1970s - 1990s by Faser SA in Poland. These masks would have be available to every civilian if an emergency should ever have happened. Of course nothing ever did happen during the cold war so millions of MC-1s were kept in their storage crates until now. These masks along with the soviet GP-5s are perhaps the most numerous types of gas mask found on the surplus market today. They are cheap and easy to find but never this cheap normally.
What you get for your £2.50
- MC-1 face piece
- New 40mm Faser made NBC filter
- Either anti-fog grease or anti-fog cloth
- Instruction leaflet
- Wz.68 Moro camo shoulder bag
What rust?
According to the ebay listing these masks have rust on them. Perhaps this was why he was flogging them off so cheaply? After ordering these masks from the seller I half expected some rotten old skanky masks which had gotten damp over the years.
After inspecting both masks thoroughly I can say that neither mask has any rust what-so-ever. The only thing i could see a little bit of tarnishing to the grey mask eye pieces. Nothing that dramatic though.
The Filters
Brand new sealed filters
The filters that came with both kits are in brand new condition. There doesn't seem to be any dents, dings or rust on the outside of the filter cans indicating that they have been stored correctly and plucked straight from the original crate. Neither seals on the top or the bottom of the filters have been broken which is always nice especially if you plan on collecting the mask.
⚠⚠Do these filters contain Asbestos?⚠⚠
I would say no on this occasion as they are much newer than the filters I would normally be dealing with.I think that Faser would be using fiber glass in place of asbestos by 1985. It wouldn't stop me using them anyway unless the filters rattled when I gave them a shake. (which could indicate a break down of the internal elements)
Using old expired filters will always carry a risk however small so its down to the individual user to decide.
Alternative 40mm modern ABEK filters can be obtained relatively cheaply from ebay if people don't want to risk it.
Instruction Sheet/s
Polish and English instructions
Its always nice to find an original instruction manual in with your mask and these two bargain MC-1s are no exception.
Buried deep inside the pockets of the shoulder bags are these two sided instruction sheets explaining the basics on how to don the mask and how to look after it.
One interesting thing I noticed was that the grey mask from 1989 has the instructions written in English?! Every other MC-1 I have owned came with the text written in Polish as you would expect. This is a little strange - I wonder if it is a coincidence that the english instructions were made in 1989 at the same time as the fall of communism in Poland? Were Faser once restricted from selling outside the soviet block and were now free to look further afield for their sales? who really cares?
Im not sure if this little slip of paper makes the 1989 kit more collectable or not? I will certainly make a point of mentioning it when I come to sell it! ha ha.
Overall then this mask kit represents great value for money even if its isn't bought for halloween purposes. The average prepper will find this deal tempting I'm sure.
Rating: ✅✅✅✅✅5 out of 5
Of course this bargain was going to get full marks! There is no better gas mask deal than this online at the moment. The price is simply too good to miss. The quality of the masks is excellent despite the 'Rust' nonsense in the description. Everything is new and unissued and well worth the tiny £2.50 price tag. Im tempted to a buy a few more whilst the offer is still on!
Link to the ebay deal HERE.