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WWII POW engraved Messkit.... something doesnt add up


KASTAUFFER
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I love POW engraved messkits, canteens ETC , so when I saw this on Ebay I initially got excited and almost hit the BUY bar. Then I noticed the messkit was dated 1945, and he was captured in Dec 1944.

 

If this was made in 1945, I doubt it could have made it intoa POW camp by May 1945. He obviously wasnt captured with it. Maybe he got it issued to him after he was liberated and added the message? What do you think?

 

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/WW2-U-S-PRISONER-W...=item27c1658d61

 

 

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Marchville1918

It seems very reasonable that he got this mess kit after he was liberated and marked it then. I don't think he was allowed to give his unit ID to the enemy. He could have been back home and out the army entirely when he marked this. You never know.

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I've thought a lot about this piece, sure seems odd, but if a person were to fake a POW mess kit, surely they'd be swift enough to see the date. Gotta be some kind of legit.

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norwegian blue

I also took my sweet time before posting...

what bothers me is

1/ the inscriptions look very fresh to me (no dirt/grime in the 'grooves' left by the engraving)

2/ that soldier sure took great pains to indicate what any collector/historian would want to know... and that info must be freely available from the National Archives POW database if someone wants to doctor a mundane meat can

but I may be paranoïd too....

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AL might mean aluminum, but the 1945 dated Massillon AL CO mess kit beside me is without a doubt made out of stainless steel. I went on a WWII mess kit spree a few years ago when a local surplus store shut down and thought I had something made by Massillon, had to run to the garage where a stack of them were sitting to check.

 

One difference in their construction that you can sometimes see if you can't have the kit in your hands is that the rim of the skillet part is rolled flat on stainless kits (like this one), but rounded on aluminum kits. Same sort of roll as on aluminum vs. post-WWII canteen cups. I do have one or two cups and kits that were made of a much more rough stainless that shines a lot less than most examples you see, they have a semi-circular half roll to their edge, though.

 

To be honest, I just figured it was stainless because of the picture. Aluminum almost always has a whiteness to it, for lack of better description on my part, from polished to raw, it's always brighter. I work in aluminum a lot, most times I can spot it a mile away. I did let a piece of stainless pipe get through the last time I cast some artwork and was melting scrap since ingots are a bit more expensive. Sure looked and sounded dull like aluminum, had to fish it out of the pot red hot, kinda sucked!

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