The german entenching tools

Nederlanske er meget like. Ofte malte blader(se etter maling) i likhet med norske. Spadens håndtak lukkes helt inn til bladet på de nedrelandske. Tyske lukkes med avstand fra blad til håndtak. Nederlandske er 157mm over bladet, de tyske er 150mmm. Tyske har skarpere kanter i rillene.

Norwegian postwar military green paint will show under Uv-light, even when not visible to the eye. 

Bgs postwar entrenching tools are very similar to the war era. They are often marked by a number or year in addition to the makers mark wich may be the same as ww2 production. The covers on the BGS are often the other way and closes to the right instead of left. The carriers are mostly marked with year of manufacture. 

The "wolfshead" shovel is an interesting one. Several came out of norwegian surplus storage in the ninethies. There has been many discussion wether these are wartime german or postwar, even polish made. For certain there has been no military equipment imported to Norway from Poland after the war. The norwegians weer under the marshall plan and the allies destroyed a lot of german ww2 weaponry to make them customers for allied equipment. Poland was under the Soviet block and it is impossible that postwar Polish shovels ended up in Norway. There were appx 400.000 german troops in Norway when they surrended and that makes a lot of surplus shovels and no need for manufacture or import. Also it is a fact that a lot of non typiocal or second priority equipment was used in Norway, both weapons and equipment making a lot of equipment and gear non typical or even pre war. One possibilty is that the wolfshead are made in Poland and then reissued by the germans for the Norwegian campaign or a manufacturer in Germany prewar.

Original vs Dutch variant

Several countries copied the german design of the klappspaten. Th closest to the original design is the dutch variant. This can be seen offered in the marked as original ww2 german klappspaten. The covers are often original or artificially aged replicas. The first telltale is the green paint found on the dutch variant. If it has been removed, uv light might show invisible residues of the paint. ANother differnece is the ridles in the shovel head. On the dutch they are rounded, on original ww2 german they are sharper. The german klappspatenwas designed to make the shovel head away from the carriers hip. As seen on the picture the top is angled to give the handle an angle  compared to the dutch one on the right.