The 1937 pattern small pack and it's contents.

[Adrian Stevenson]

Thanks for the comments guys!


Hi Marcus, I have a couple of '51 dated "RAF" marked mess tins I will post them up for you.

Hi Rick, those ration tins will be really collectable now

Hi Tony, hmm large pack... I had not thought of that I have not got a Princess Mary's gift tin in my collection would you believe? But I do have "dibs" on one that my Godmother owns that has a known history to a distant relative, a Guardsman who was KIA before he got his tin. It comes with a nice letter from his CO saying how his mates wanted his family to have his tin. Sadly it has no contents. It always amazes me too that choccy and fags did not get used? Must be as it was a present from the Royal family or something? Have you seen these full tins at shows that have been around the past few years? They sell at about £90 but the cynic in me stops me from buying one. Here is a good website on the gift tin:
http://members.lycos.co.uk/hinckley1/mary.html

Cheers, Ade.

[ROBB]

Hi chaps at a local auction their are 3 tins one filled and mint one with the fags and one empty ,The good news is they are mixed in with general items ,I will let you know how I get on ,Rob

[DAK Rommel]

Brilliant Ade!,
I love it. My goal is to have a similar collection of Personal gear and Webbing
I have 90% of the Webbing, but only a few odds and ends when it comes to soldiers personal equipment. Since you are quite advanced in this field I wondered if you could answer a question for me.
Do you have any British - Commonwealth soldiers pocket knives?
I have a couple of British Manufactured Soldiers Pocket knives that I have always wondered about. One dated 1943 with the broad arrow mark and black bakelite grips, the other is a Wartime Australian Stainless Steel pocket knife. Both have marlin spikes, tin opener and blunt knife. Similar to a FJ Gravity knife.

Do you know if these were issued to Infantry or Airborne troops? or both.

I look forward to your reply

All the best

Rob

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Rob, I am please you too are enjoying the thread.

These knives were general issue to all branches of the British Forces, everyone had one.

I have only two. As it is something I have not chose to collect in quantity. But one of mine did come from a Vet. I will add a pic once I have taken one These knives are a subject in their right. I will try and borrow a few from friends to do a thread. There are a huge number of makers variants. There are some rare ones to look out for, such as the special SOE issue one.

Cheers, Ade.

[MH184]

The all metal, British 'swiss army' knife is still (or was rather) issued. I had one back in 1989/90 dated 1945 !!! The engineers and pioneers used them alot, we all bought Leatherman's and the alike after reading Bravo 2 Zero , I still have pocket knife some where ?


Very common item I believe, and you can always pick one up ! The earlier the date the better of course, in my mind; you do see alot though dated 1945 for some reason.

Ade do you have an SOE variant ? ( See you within the next couple of days )

Kind regards,


Marcus

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Marcus, these knives used to be about 50p each and nobody wanted them. Now they go for about £5 each. Large WW1 style examples are worth buying.

I do not have an SOE knife myself, but a mate of mine does. I will borrow it to photograph.


Looking forwards to you coming over


Cheers, Ade.

[DAK Rommel]

Great!,
I look forward to seeing your 'Tommy' Pocket knives.
I picked my 1943 Knife up for equivalent of 5 pounds, 2 years or so ago. I see that they are going up now, as all other Commonwealth Memorabilia has.
But you can still pick them up rather cheaply.

Look forward to your next thread , and the SOE PK,

All the best

Rob

[Simon O.]

Adrian

The reason i asked about the mug was because i dug one up last year, literally. Same colour but it doesn't have the dimples and isn't pint sized, i wondered if it could have been a British item mixed in with all the German. I do turn up British stuff now and again, i've found at least 1 British clasp knife and i have a photo dated to the summer of '45 showing a German mountain artillery leutnant wearing a British helmet (just posing for the camera). And then there's the universal carrier track link i found.


As for WWII stuff still on issue, i remember getting dozens of 1945 dated machetes into the stores prior to an exercise in Brunei back in '97. I'm sure the big MOD storage facilities have got all sorts of interesting and not so interesting kit stashed away from the war.

[Jack Dutton-Roberts]

Classic thread Ade, very original

It is good to see all those rare original contents

Thanks from Jack

PS I did have two SOE pocket knives both commercially made ones

PPS My dad collects pocket knives and has over 30 variants, I'll put a picture in later

[MH184]

Oh my god, I remember those Simon with the canvas scabbards and wooden handles! Thats right they were always 40's or very early 50's dated.

And the RMA's in the earlier 90's with Inf. units had 40's dated handbags (the little webbing first aid shoulder bags with a red cross on the front.

Of course alot of TA units used up the surplus kit '37 & '44, as well as it being sold off to Jordan and god and holy knows where.

[Simon O.]

Not those Marcus, they're the modern ones. I'm talking big ones in leather sheaths m8. Here's another item from the war still in use (or was 5-6 years ago) Binos, we had a load of WWII dated binos. On the weapons front, up until the SA80\LSW came in we had LMGs (Bren Guns) most we had were 44\45 Canadian ones converted to 7.62cm NATO. I joined the Junior Leaders Regiment Royal Artillery in '85 and one of the two training gun batteries still used 25pdrs (live firing and all). In fact come to think of it, i swear i saw a 25pdr being used in Afghanistan on the news last week, not to mention MkIII Lee Enfields. I can also remember them firing off the last stocks of 5.5" gun ammunition at Larkhill in the early 90's too.

[JohnnyN75]

Maker's mark

[Any idea who the maker was? I collect tin/can openers (USA P38) and have one with MMS marking.

Thanks
Johnny

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Johnny, sorry I have no idea who "MMS" was.

Cheers, Ade.

[nbroadarrowz]

Dear Fellow Collectors,
It is a common misconseption that the first rectangular mess tins were tin plated. This is incorrect.

The List of changes B 2537 of April 1939 introduce a
'Tins, Mess, Rectangular, aluminium, complete.
which consisted of Bodies, inner and outer.

These mess tins replace the dismounted and mounted service mess tins.

Due to the war effort a tin plated rectangular mess tin was later introduced to save aluminium. Near the end of the war aluminium was reintroduced to make mess tins.
Barry

[Jean-Loup]

Cool thread Adrian!