US Army Emergency "Iron" Ration, Dec. 1906 Example

[1stMinn]

In decades of collecting and dealing I’ve never found one of these, and not for lack of trying. This afternoon a tool collector friend – a very good friend – called. He had been putting together a pile of old tools at a Minnesota garage sale when the owner pressed this into his hand and said he needed it. It went into the pile for which he paid $18. And since he didn’t really need it, he called me!



Now the references say that these were issued from 1907 to their discontinuance in 1922. So this has to be one of the first ones issued.



It measures just over 7 inches long, 3 inches wide and 1.75 inches thick.



The contents seem to be the same as filled the slightly smaller cans during the Great War.



Looks like the little key to open the end is missing, but we thought we’d better not hold out waiting to get a better one!

Hopefully the photos and measurements will be good reference for those who have interest in such rare survival pieces!

 

Stephen

[RustyCanteen]

wow.

 

You had an excellent month, or is that year?

[Mitter2k1]

Holy cow that's cool! I bet there isn't a lot of those around.

[jagjetta]

Outstanding piece and very hard to find! Have searched for years to no avail. Missed on on AGM's site last year. I think it sold for around $600.

 

Well done.

[jagjetta]

Boy, I have to correct myself...Just looked up the last Emergency Ration sold on AGM's "INSIDER" (a great resource, btw), and it sold for $945 in 2011! I am way behind the times.

[dustin]

Pretty cool and rare ration. In WWI there were three special rations that were used the Reserve Ration, Trench Ration and Emergency Ration (the one you have)

Reserve Ration was for one man for one day consisting of one pound can of corned beef, two once tins of hard bread, 2.4 ounces sugar, 1.12 ounces of roasted and ground coffee and 0.16 ounce of salt.

Trench Ration was for 25 men consisting of variety of canned meats, salt, sugar, coffee, and cigarettes.

Emergency Ration was just that an emergency ration to be used if no other sustenance sources are available and probably can be viewed as the first "survival" ration for the US military in the 20th century, the grandfather of them all. It consisted of three 3-ounce cakes of a mixture of beef powder and cooked wheat and three one ounce chocolate bars. About 2 million were shipped to France prior to the Armistice. It is also reported that these rations were used by pilots patrolling the Mexican border

[Dr_rambow]

Another item on my collecting bucket list. The Reserve Ration tins are hard enough to find, this is on a whole other planet.

 

I need to find myself a picker that can hit all the yard sales that I’m too busy working to go to myself.

[Samanella]

Found this at an Estate Sale recently. Can someone tell me the value?

[eaglerunner88]

Judging off the posts from 8 years ago, probably pushing $1000.