A treasure trove of WWII First Aid Items in a Civil Defense First Aid Kit

[rambob]

Being basically a risk taker and a cheap person, I came up with an idea on an item that was pretty inexpensive and plentiful about ten years ago. Knowing that a lot of WWII surplus was used as Civil Defense supplies after the war, I thought why not in Civil Defense issued first aid kits. So when I blundered on this mint, intact State of California Civil Defense First Aid on eBay, I said “What the hey!!” and bid on it hoping it would be packed with WWII era goodies. I won the kit and with shipping, got it delivered for a total of $45. I will leave it up to you to decide, but I think I did pretty well. It is packed full with military issue first aid items with the lions share being WWII era. There wasn’t anything rare or uncommon, but there were a goodly amount of mint items.

 

The confirmed post WWII items are one of the Dressing, First Aid, Camouflaged, Large 2-017-425 and two of the Bandage, Muslim, Triangular, Compressed, Camouflaged 2-011-755 bandages due to their post war stock numbers. I am not sure about whether the twelve 2 inch Gauze Bandages or the two packages of safety pins are WWII era since there are no stock numbers printed on them. Of course opinions are welcome.

 

The items with WWII stock numbers are ten of the Small Battle Dressing Camouflaged with the Navy stock number 2-396, three of the Large First Aid Dressings 92050, and one of the Field Tourniquets 93780. Since I have no immediate need for any of the contents right now, I plan to just keep the kit together as it was originally issued.

 

FYI. Other items in the kit were, four pieces of wooden splint material, 1 roll of 3 inch Plaster Adhesive, one pencil for writing, one pencil for marking on skin, 10 paper cups, 5 single edge razor blades and one book of 20 Civil Defense Emergency Tags.

Bob

[rambob]

All of the interesting contents laid out.

[rambob]

Closeup of each example of the interesting items.

[Steve1987]

Great score! I would have never though so many WWII supplies would be in there.

[rambob]

Steve1987, Thanks. I was shocked when I first opened the kit since the eBay auction didn't really show any close details of what was contained in the kit.

 

Bob

[Rakkasan187]

I think you scored a sleeper.. There are some great items in there..

 

Congratulations on your find..

 

Leigh

[rambob]

Leigh, Thanks. I am always willing to take risks to think outside the box on where WWII militaria may be hiding undiscovered.

 

Bob

[med-dept]

Great score, Bob. I recently purchased one of these myself because of the numerous WW2 contents that were included. They can often be a good way to grab some decent condition items.

 

Per your request by PM, the Safety Pins are indeed WW2 period, and are getting difficult to find now. Unfortunately, the small Gauze Bandages are actually post-WW2 too. The outer box (containing 12) is typically marked with the hyphenated Stock Number.

 

Thanks,

Ben.

[rambob]

Ben, Thanks for weighing on on this!! I guess great minds do think alike about these kits having some nice WWII contents in them.

 

Bob

[uplandmod]

I own two of these.....a nice insta-collection of WWII and immediate post WWII items!

 

Great find!