A Can You'd Ignore At The Gun Show.......

[Charlie Flick]

At least I would, until now. I ran across this image on the site of the Royal Armouries in the U.K. It shows a can designed to contain two suppressed M3 Grease Guns and accessories. Who'd a thunk that?? Not me.

 

 

The museum's description is:

 

Steel airtight container, green painted. Contains 2 suppressor units, 4 magazines, 2 packets of guide rods, 2 cleaning brushes and two packets containing slings.....OSS ordered 1,000 suppressors for the M3A1 submachine gun from the High Standard Manufacturing Company in May 1944. They were to be built on barrels supplied by General Motors Guide Lamp Division. Shipments of suppressed barrels commenced in August 1944. The barrels were to be mated to standard issue M3A1 submachine guns to create the OSS M3A1 Suppressed. In December 1944 a further 4,000 suppressed barrels were ordered from High Standard. The order was completed by September 1945 and almost all were put into store and not issued.

Most suppressed M3A1s were issued to the Far East Theatre and China.

 

This is an example of the suppressed M3. (Photo credit to SAR).

 

 

I'm gonna have to start paying more attention to these kind of miscellaneous metal containers seen so often, and usually ignored, at gun shows. I'd like to have one of these (and the contents!)

 

Regards,

Charlie

[Charlie Flick]

As the Cracker Jack box used to say, "There's a surprise in every box."

 

[Charlie Flick]

But wait! There's more!

 

[Baron3-6]

Wow...this is outstanding, and yes I'd probably see the can and think some NATO circa 1960

[USARV72]

Holy Cow!!!!

[johnsonlmg41]

Great story, but a lot of museum descriptions are simply made up.....potentially by finding this package somewhere in the basement and assuming it was an "issue" item and creating a story around it. The story of "hey kid, go find a container for this leftover crummy US stuff in the corner of the basement, or find an ammo box to put it all in" doesn't hold the same attraction. I have a substantial collection of vintage MG's and can tell you most authors have never owned any of them, nor spent any time with them and descriptions are not particularly accurate, even in some military manuals. The classic disconnect between "those that do and those who teach, inspect, engineer, etc." Rarely ever the same person. Cool photo though!

[kwill]

Great story, but a lot of museum descriptions are simply made up.....potentially by finding this package somewhere in the basement and assuming it was an "issue" item and creating a story around it. The story of "hey kid, go find a container for this leftover crummy US stuff in the corner of the basement, or find an ammo box to put it all in" doesn't hold the same attraction. I have a substantial collection of vintage MG's and can tell you most authors have never owned any of them, nor spent any time with them and descriptions are not particularly accurate, even in some military manuals. The classic disconnect between "those that do and those who teach, inspect, engineer, etc." Rarely ever the same person. Cool photo though!

 

So, given your expertise and collecting experience are you writing books and articles to correct the record?

[Rakkasan187]

Great story, but a lot of museum descriptions are simply made up.....potentially by finding this package somewhere in the basement and assuming it was an "issue" item and creating a story around it. The story of "hey kid, go find a container for this leftover crummy US stuff in the corner of the basement, or find an ammo box to put it all in" doesn't hold the same attraction. I have a substantial collection of vintage MG's and can tell you most authors have never owned any of them, nor spent any time with them and descriptions are not particularly accurate, even in some military manuals. The classic disconnect between "those that do and those who teach, inspect, engineer, etc." Rarely ever the same person. Cool photo though!

As a museum professional at a US Army museum I can assure you that "a lot of museum descriptions are simply made up" is not a valid statement at all. We make every effort to be historically accurate and relevant and if we have questions about particulars of an artifact we will research and reach out to individuals in the field that are more knowledgeable and versed on said items and will rely on their expertise rather than "make up a description"

 

A large portion of my job is research from viable sources which is confirmed and checked prior to placing any artifact on exhibit so that we are providing factual information that is accurate and in many cases backed by supporting documentation and or photos and from authors and scholarly experts within their fields...

 

You may have a substantial collection of vintage weapons, but that has nothing to do with the shipping container in question which could have very easily been utilized by the OSS or Jedburgh teams on various operations, their organizations equipment and shipping containers and methods of deployment/use were not standardized by any means...

 

I too would like to see something that you can provide that corrects the record...

 

"The classic disconnect between those that do and those who teach, inspect, engineer, etc...."

 

What can you teach us about this particular container??

[johnsonlmg41]

 

So, given your expertise and collecting experience are you writing books and articles to correct the record?

 

I have a job that currently requires a lot of time commitment, but perhaps in retirement I'll look into it. I had a rare gun (1 of 3 known) with an article published in a prominent magazine by a well known author. LOTS of liberties taken with the background on that particular gun, to the point I'd never allow that again. Just finished another book

(I also have an extensive library within the scope of my collecting interests) and saw several repro items that have now been legitimized by again, a "well known and respected" author in the field. He was just too lazy to do the research and ask around.

 

I've been to both OSS museums at Langley. I saw a lot of stuff, but no such can or package arrangement. Not to say it's not there, but I've never seen it or run across any documentation other than this photo. I have an M3 and most of the accessories so I have a vested interest in collecting these items and spend a considerable amount of time researching the guns and accessories.

 

I've seen a lot of inaccurate museum displays and while I sympathize that there is not enough time and money, etc. sometimes things are blatant. I was at Cody one time, saw a rare gun (less then 10 made) with the wrong model number. When I flagged someone down and mentioned " you might want to correct that description of the model on that rare gun", the employee kind of snickered an laughed. I countered with, if you don't put much value on it, maybe you'd consider selling it?

 

As to the original picture. Show me some "in print", period documentation to back up the premise that this was an "issue" type item and it will be an awesome find. If it's just a "one off combination of parts" it's nothing more than a cool picture of cool stuff in a can. If you want, I can put my gun in a different can with the 9mm OSS conversion kit, print out some bogus description and put it up here and legitimize it by claiming I found it that way? Surely at some point some soldier would have used the same can I will with the same parts, but again it's pretty meaningless in the big picture.

 

Yesterday I was watching a gun Jesus video on a gun I own. He was given two guns, a MKI and supposedly MKII and the purpose was to describe the upgrades that made the second gun better. Unfortunately he was given a MKII with MKI parts and struggled to suggest what was actually upgraded? Sort of not his fault since it's not his stuff, but 220K people now have incorrect information and 99.9 % believe it probably including the poor sucker that paid over 10K for the gun. He didn't do diligent research on both guns to identify them correctly, he believed what he was told and it was wrong, then legitimized it on video and enhanced the value for the seller.

The point is everything is up for question all the time as new info emerges daily, but a lot of info is purely bogus often made up to enhance values of certain items or other unknown reasons?

By design, I am a "nobody" in the collecting field but from time to time a little bit of frustration creeps in and I see fit to question things I see, especially when I have examples sitting in my lap which reduces most speculation. I don't belong to any organizations including the NRA, so what could I even possibly know? FWIW