Looking for a good shovel? Well, check out your nearest hardware store. But if you're after a crude but effective, made of good ol' wood and steel, "buy once, just change the shaft when it breaks" kind of article, this Romanian infantry spade should do it! The historical look makes these strangely pleasing to the eye too.

So, this is the standard infantry model of the Romanian army. It's quite long for a military spade and has a pointy blade for digging into rough terrain. When you add some length to the spade, digging foxholes and making fortifications becomes faster - but the tradeoff is the larger bulk. These are from the era of the dictatorship regime, and must have witnessed a lot.

Some bushcrafters like to bring a spade with them for various camp tasks. These are pretty cool for that kind of purposes and crude enough to use for rough tasks without fear of ruining a "good" shovel. If you want to save space in your pack, you could make the shaft easier to remove for transport and pack both the blade and the shaft on top of each other. Of course a true pro always makes the shaft from local materials!

Romanian army stuff!

These are pretty old, and used with the love and care usually associated with vast East Bloc conscript armies. All are "intact", meaning the shaft might wobble a bit (normal with military spades), but such a "problem" is rather easy to fix. The details and length of the shaft piece might vary from shovel to shovel, some are even painted green.