Early Marines Gas Can

[Luis]

Marines, Cuba
Date taken: 1941
Photographer: Dmitri Kessel

[Robin]

Nice! "Mystery cans" being used by US Marines while on expedition to Cuba. Does that sound familiar to anyone?

[gerrykan]

Dated 1941 also.

[Luis]

Another pic

[lucakiki]

Is some photoshop guru able to enhance and enlarge the camlock lid ?
So we can try to assess the features of the tab?

[gerrykan]

I did some searching and could not find the photos that Mariano posted. Perhaps he could supply the links to them.

I did find a couple others from the same group.


http://images.google.com/hosted/life/f? ... feae32b997






http://images.google.com/hosted/life/f? ... 2f8076ccb6

[lucakiki]

Roy, I am aware that assessing the color from a black and white picture is difficult and possibly misleading, but would it be such a great leap of faith, or wishful thinking, to consider it different from green?

[gerrykan]

Luca,
As you mention it would be impossible to determine what color the cans are painted from the black and white images, though they do appear to be a very light color.
There is also the possibility that they are not painted at all. The cans may be galvanized and left in their natural state.
There are several photographs of unpainted 1941 US Army specification galvanized cans in use.

You may also note some similarities between the Life Magazine cans and this particular can that I own.

There are no holes in the face of the handle for attaching octane tags or lid retaining chains.


There is no hole in the tab of the camlock, and the handles are either oxy-acetylene, or arc welded on. Not spot welded(also known as resistance welding) as other US cans are.


If only they had taken a picture of a can with the lid open so we could see the shape of the spout and vent tube.

Oxy-acetylene welding.


Arc welding.


Spot welding machine.

[gerrykan]

Example of what appear to be unpainted US Army spec galvanized cans mentioned in my last post.

[gerrykan]

Marines, Cuba
Date taken: 1941
Photographer: Dmitri Kessel

Link to original: http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l? ... dd047a18f8
Click on the photo in the link, and you will get the large version.

[gerrykan]

Another pic

Link to original: http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l? ... b3604cc414

[lucakiki]

Luca,
As you mention it would be impossible to determine what color the cans are painted from the black and white images, though they do appear to be a very light color.
There is also the possibility that they are not painted at all.

Roy, I think it is interesting enough to note how they are not in olive drab...

[gerrykan]

Roy, I think it is interesting enough to note how they are not in olive drab...

Luca,
I agree that they do not appear to be olive drab. They are also in the possession of the US Marine Corps, that had an affinity for forest green paint.

[gerrykan]

Something else I noticed was the pin where the lid pivots on the cam-lock yoke appears to be exposed versus concealed.












Without looking through all of my pictures, I can't remember a German or British can with an exposed pin.
The only other cam-lock can that I can think of with an exposed pin was made in the USA during WWII.

[Chuck Lutz]

So some of the "mystery" is solved...at least for the Marines using ROUND spout galvanized cam-lock, exposed pin, no-holes-in-the-handle, round burp tube, stick welded handle, "X" side cans.

Here is a pic of two cans from New Zealand...where the Marines were prepping for the Pacific invasions...

New Zealand Collection.jpg (57.39 KiB) Viewed 2728 times

Here is a pic of two cans from the USA...

USA Collection.jpg (241.62 KiB) Viewed 2728 times

Note that the red colored "mystery can" next to each one, with a big "X" side, cam-lock lid, (oval/egg/German/British) euro-spout, hole-in-the-center tab, single small hole in handle, spot-welded handle, oval burp tube.....has been found in NZ where those same Marines were separated from the Round Spout Galv one....which might indicate that this is the one seen in other early Pacific photos of Marine cans that are NOT the CONCO kind we see later on.