A possible way to decipher the capital letter maker´s mark found on mess kits and can

[Bernhard]

My fellow collectors ,

I would like to have your thoughts about this possible way to find
out who was the maker that stood behind the well known capital
letter maker´s marks we are so familiar with on our canteen and mess kits.

Unfortunately it seems that there is no list available to solve this mystery.
But as many of you will recall a quote from the x-files TV show :
"the truth is somewhere out......"
So was my thought when I played around with some of my fieldgear this
afternoon.

I handled a very nice canteen and took some pics when I asked myself who
was this L&SL maker that made the aluminum bottle and who might have been the maker hiding behind the maker´s mark GNL that made and marked the black painted alu-cup on my Feldflasche...

I grabbed my Code book and tried to find out by using this "rule" :

Initial of the first name , name and city is the way the firms marked their goods.

Example (best known) is HRE = Heinrich Ritter Esslingen

Then I started with L&S L and GNL and also with OHW and after thumbling
thru my book I came up with some very reasonable results.

For example let´s take the OHW maker :
I look for a maker who´s name starts with the letter H who´s company is
located in a town that starts with the letter W and to round things up the
first name of the producer must have the initial O.
And -of course-your candidate has to be a "Metallwarenfabrik" to qualify as
a possible maker of your mess kit.

So I was lucky and found a perfect match for the HRE rule :
OHW = Otto Honsel , Aluminium-Werk , Werdohl (NW)
now I can understand why there are some OHW 44 mess kits "out there"
that are still made out of aluminium and that in `44 !

I tried the same method anf came up with L&S L = Linnepe & Schiffer ,
Metallwarenfabrik , Lüdenscheid (grd) and GNL = Gebrüder Noelle , Bestecke ,Lüdenscheid....(dqg)

My fellow collectors : I do not claim this to be one hundred percent correct
because I cannot prove my theory....so please be patient with me.

Here are some others , that were already published before but nevertheless can be tracked :
FWBN = F.W. Bröckelmann,GmbH KG , Aluminiumwerk , Neheim-Hüsten
their normal code was ccj

There many , many other three letter codes that we might try to decipher.

Again , my fellow collectors this only is an idea I had and in no way do I
want to re-invent the wheel.....

Regards

Bernhard

[Bernhard]

Different maker on the cup ....and more to find out on my mess kits..

[MP44_tom]

Nice research and thinking !!

I have a few maker marks somewhere (found in the Allgemeine Heeresmitteilungen) which gives 5 maker marks.... have to check where I've got them.....

Tom
www.mp44.nl

[Bernhard]

Here the way to search for the maker...

[Bernhard]

A very useful and good book !!

[me6_130]

Well, if you have a whole list of makers it makes things easier.

Carles

[Dresckmann]

It is a very good researching work... Go ahead with the other makers... A lot of collectors will thank your effort.

Regards.

Fran

[Grubhy]

Bernhard I'm impressed

[daco]

this is very interresting and i like the way you proceed

as a collector of german mess kit, I am very interrested in your results

I don't have your book but can you check if BSW = Brüder Schneider Wien ?

OHW seems to be the same as RBNr 0/0571/0116

regards
daco

[Bernhard]

Hi daco,

Yes BSW looks very good using my HRE rule . I found some more possible makers in the code book..
Here are some .

BSW = Brüder Schneider Wien
G&CL = Gerhardi&Cie , Aluminiumwaren , Lüdenscheid
MN = Metall u.Eisen GmbH , Nürnberg
ESL = Ernst Schneider , Metallwarenfabrik , Lüdenscheid

nice and interresting for sure..

Regards

Bernhard

[daco]

Bernhard

will you try to establish a list ?

personaly, I tried to establish all codes/marks and year of production for the mess kit (1931 model)

all the time I have to have it in hand or to have a good picture before adding a new one to my list (I trust what I see ).
so far as your post, I did not have the possibility to know the real name of the factories. Now this aim seems able to be reached.
But the problem is that I don't have your book



regards
daco

[gnadenlose]

First of all: thanks a lot, Bernhard!

I once tried to establish a list based on my own collection of canteens and some other alu-stuff. As everyone can see there are mistakes in this lousy list, some abbrevations are misinterpreted etc. http://www.militaar.net/phpBB2/viewt...220007#p220007

With that said I'm joining the millions of those who've been waiting for such list for years

[knoffhoff]

Nice effort, I would really love to see more capital letter makers being decrypted.
But at the same time I don't think your method is very reliable and might create misinformation.
I think it is a good way to narrow down, or get a clue which makers the code could stand for. But after that it has to be checked if that maker really was the one using the code.
Without any further research, just relying on on the completeness of another publication, the validity of your rule and your correct interpretation of it.

For example you mention MN = Metall u.Eisen GmbH , Nürnberg.
What makes you so certain about it? Couldn't it be Menesa Neunkirchen, a maker for which we have at least evidence that they produced canteens?

I really don't want to talk your idea and effort bad, but I think you should be very careful and always try to find some sort of other evidence before you make your findings public.
Or at least make it absolutely clear which makers are proven and which are only assumptions.

[Bernhard]

My fellow collectors ,

Thank you all for taking the time to leave a comment on my idea.
As I pointed out in the title of my posting I was thinking about
the possibility of finding the makers by using the sources that are available.

Therefore I will quote my first posting:

My fellow collectors : I do not claim this to be one hundred percent correct
because I cannot prove my theory....so please be patient with me.

and

Again , my fellow collectors this only is an idea I had and in no way do I
want to re-invent the wheel.....


A special thank to member knoffhoff for pointing out the possible
problems by using only one source of information.
As for prooving what I have found out of the list - there is no proove !

The whole procedure is no rocket science it just trying the "read" the list.
It would be very easy if the whole data base could be searched using
the computer...
What I did was thumbing thru the pages and looking for some matches
with my old eyes.
As you can imagine the risk for an error is quite high.

I searched for the Menesa Neukirchen maker in the book , but did not find
it.
After a quick search I found out that Menesa is the trademark of a firm
that was called Metallwerke Neheim , Göke & Co.KG and is listed as such.
Their other codes were "bot" and "483"

Here you see that I simply overread the M and N connection.
And indeed would this maker be a second candidate for using MN as a code .
Using the HRE rule another possibilty could be MNN . I do not know if
there are mess kits having this code.

As you can see it is nothing more than an idea I had !
I will not make a list out of several reasons but will try to continue to
go through my own collection and try to find other "matches"


One last "try" !

Here we have a nice ´36 dated canteen and a ´36 cup and I could
not resist.....


Bottle is marked A.W.G and this might have been the maker´s
mark of Albert Wildfang , Metallpreßwerk Gelsenkirchen , other
codes listed are " gox" and "792"
This maker was the only one that perfectly matched the HRE rule
and is of course a firm that had something to do with working metal...

Any prooves ? No Sir !

Before we close this theme a short glimpse on the cup , also from ´36
that was made by someone using C&CW as mark.
By thumbing thru my codebook I saw that there was a company that would
fit nicely : Colsman & Co , Walzwerk , Werdohl other code was "drp"( is still in business today !)


Thank you all for your interrest

Regards

Bernhard

[Bernhard]

next pics..