I've been after this particular piece belonging to my father for years now- or a replacement for this one, which doesn't seem to exist. Well, it is finally mine and I'm putting it to use! It's my father's old air mattress with inflation bag.
Now maybe an air mattress doesn't seem that exciting, but consider that this air mattress is about a decade older than me and is still just as functional as the day it was made and then you have something.
This tag says either August of 1983, 1963 or 1933. I know it wasn't 1983 because I personally have used it at cub camp prior to 1983, and I assume it isn't 1933 because the manufacturing doesn't really lend itself to being quite that old, so I'm guessing 1963, which would be more or less accurate as that would have been the early days of my father's military career.
I have slept on it the last two nights and it still holds air just fine. I have to top it up a bit each night before I go to bed, but it stays inflated overnight, even with my ~200lbs on it. There are no patches, no repairs, no scratches or any other marks on this, despite having served my father well and making campouts a lot easier on my brother and I in our younger days. This is no surprise, as it feels as if it was made from old tires off retired military vehicles!
That having been said, it is actually quite comfortable, even though I have sensitive skin issues with the latex/rubber used in it's construction. Nothing a good sleeping bag doesn't fix though! And, it uses an ingenious inflation system- you connect the mattress inflation hose to the port on the bag, inflate the bag by holding it open then rapidly closing it, then roll the bag up to force the air into the mattress. Doing this 5-6 times will pretty well fill the mattress to capacity, then you have to quickly disconnect the bag and put the plug in the inflation hose. I say quickly because there's no valve on this one to keep the air from comign out like on modern inflatables.
As I said, I have been looking for a modern variant of one of these, or more surplus ones, but so far I have never seen one like this. I don't think it was military issue, even though I grew up thinking it was. Looking back on it, I was raised on military bases and camped with other military kids and no one else had one of these, so I'm guessing my father picked it up somewhere. Considering it is closing in on it's 53rd birthday, I'm guessing that whatever he may have paid for it was well worth it!
Since I am mid move and have no furniture left where I am in Halifax, I am greatly appreciating having it and knowing that it is still intact.
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