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During the 1960s, the personal care kit
shown here was a very popular accessory for business people travelling
around the globe. It is a rather large
leather 'wallet'
that roughly measures 28 x 17 x 5 cm and contains
a razor, toothbrush, nail cutter, shaving mirror, tooth picks, cloth brush, comb, etc. Basically, everything you would need for personal maintenance
when on the move.
What makes this kit special, is that it contains a secret compartment,
also known as a stash or concealment container,
which is invisible to the naked eye and
the X-ray equipment at customs.
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After inserting a pin into a barely visible hole at a specific location
and pushing it down, a secret lock is disengaged and a hidden door is
opened.
In this case, the diagonal brown leather bar
at the bottom right covers the access door, and the needle has to be inserted
into a small hole to the right of the nail file.
After pushing the needle down, the brown leather bar is unlocked and can be
shifted towards the left,
after which it can be removed completely.
The access door, which is similar to a letter box, is now exposed.
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Inside the container is an orange 'bag' with
a rope at the end, that allows it to be easily removed from the container.
The bag is large enough
to hold one or two passports, money,
secret documents and several OTP booklets.
The travel kit shown here is similar to the one from the internal collection of the
Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD),
which was found in the mid-1960s on a Dutch citizen who appeared to be
an East-German agent who regularly travelled to the DDR.
He used it to carry a second passport and sometimes also an OTP.
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The extra passport was needed as he was travelling under a false identity in
order to avoid East-European stamps in his real passport. The OTP booklet
was for decoding encrypted messages that were sent to him via the
Numbers Stations on the short wave radio bands,
and also to send messages via the
Russian R-353 spy radio set
that was hidden in his home in The Netherlands.
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The diagram below gives an overview of the various items inside the kit.
Kits like these were very common during the 1950s and 1960s and are even used
today by some vintage enthusiasts. The kit consists of a leather wallet
with a zipper that can be opened like a book. It contains the usual items
for washing, shaving, polishing the shoes, brushing the teeth
and manicuring the nails.
Invisible to the naked eye is a concealed compartment that is hidden in
the right half of the kit. It can be accessed through a trap door that is
hidden behind the diagonal brown leather bar at the bottom right.
The user has to insert a needle
at a specific place and
pull the bar sideways to the left,
in order to access the hidden compartment. To avoid detection
of the compartment during an X-ray scan at customs, a metal plate is embedded
behind the grey lining at the right half.
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© Crypto Museum. Created: Sunday 30 August 2015. Last changed: Saturday, 27 September 2025 - 17:07 CET.
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![Traval kit concealment courtesy AIVD Netherlands [1]](img/302200/003/full.jpg)
![Courtesy AIVD Netherlands [1]](img/302200/014/full.jpg)
![Courtesy AIVD Netherlands [1]](img/302200/019/full.jpg)
