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NVA Flashlight, "NARVA", Surplus
A proper old-time East German flashlight without any useless nonsense of the digital era. Very similar to the WWII German flashlights. Why change a working concept even if the reign of terror slightly changes. Three colored sliders for sending secret messages to your comrades.
- Discontinued product.
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A proper old-time East German flashlight without any useless nonsense of the digital era. Very similar to the WWII German flashlights. Why change a working concept even if the reign of terror slightly changes. Three colored sliders for sending secret messages to your comrades.
Use
This flashlight doesn’t have any easily breakable decadent western electronics or a million functions that no honest citizen needs. When you twist the robust metal knob at the top with proper socialist vigor, you will get enlightened. On the front panel, there are three sliders that you can use to create a green, blue, or red light. You can use them for signaling or increase the erotic appeal of your bedroom with Das Boot-style lighting.
Don’t ask about lumens, they are just capitalistic nonsense. These only use units approved by the Party, and that’s all you need to know at your security clearance.
When you open the metal case, you get hold of the battery compartment. This flashlight takes one flat 4.5 V battery. Inside there is also a slot for a spare bulb, and there should be one of those included as well. If not, be proud that it is your spare bulb that has been commandeered for rebuilding the state.
At the upper and lower edges, there are white leather flaps. They are designed for attaching the lamp to the buttons found on some NVA (and some BW) military jackets. So, this is a kind of headlamp predecessor, a boob lamp. You can of course use those to hang this lamp on any buttons or piercings you want.
Sizing
This is sized exactly right since the Party doesn’t make any mistakes. Measurements c. 65 x 125 x 40 mm (2.6” x 4.9” x 1.6”). The weight is c. 130 g (4.6 oz).
Condition
Unissued East German military surplus from some abandoned Cold War-era cellar guarded by the ghost of Stasi. So, these haven’t been used for interrogating the enemies of the state. However, since they have been stored for a long time, there can be some surface rust, warehouse dirt, and such. They are all serviceable nevertheless.
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1 ratings
Chris W. 04.02.2022 (Edited 24.03.2023) Verified purchase
First, features- clearly Varusteleka marketing dept. sees this item as a novelty so didn't include much serious information, so here goes. This lamp has quite a narrow throw, but is quite bright inside the beam. Inside the field is probably as bright as my 300lm light but as the beam is about half the radius at same distance this means the bulb is maybe 75 lumens. The beam also had some rather significant artefacts most likely caused by the plastic lens.
Has a red, blue and green filter, in order of ascending brightness. Red is very dim, but the narrow field makes it mostly unsuitable for tacticool operations in the dark, if you were considering a 30 year old £10 light for such purposes. Something unclear from the images is an extra thin lens in the top of the body, which shines unfiltered light upwards onto your face if it is worn on the chest, this feature is presumably included to make border guards look scarier in flashlight-spooky-camping-story style, but serves to ruin your night vision with red filter on. This could be solved with electrical tape but I digress.
The knob is 3 position, 'off', 'momentary on' (off until you push down on the switch which turns on the light for signalling etc.) and 'on'.
One feature hard to quantify is the bulky, fiddly technicalness of the flashlight. Feels like the kind of thing that would have been used and struggled with by the survivors in the original The Thing. Comforting to know that you can likely fix or at least diagnose any issues it begins to have.
As noted it is a boob lamp. Neither of my East German jackets have the necessary buttons for proper fitting but the fastening buttons used for closing the jacket are of correct spacing, allowing it to be attached in the middle of the chest, making you look somewhat like a train while walking the dog in the dark. If other jackets have equally spaced buttons you may be fine mounting the same way. The buttons will need to be quite large though, not like most civilian style buttons, to properly secure the lamp.
One final note is that 4.5v flat batteries are renowned for leaking, so don't use vintage batteries with your vintage torch.
Overall, fine for civilian purposes, keeps the hands free (I usually wear one of my DDR jackets anyway) and I will probably get a lot of use out of it. And if SHTF nobody will be pilfering 4.5v flat batteries so you'll have all the supply you need. Not a bad choice as a cheap and comfortingly manual lighting option.
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