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US Navy File Cabnet


River Rat 1
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Last winter a buddy ask me if I wanted a US Navy File cabnet with those lockable bars that lock all the drawers. Has US Navy stenciled on one side. And on one drawer is the label NAVSEA Det 122 I said hell ya brought my Truck over the hill to Virginia City MT and picked it up. I remember these things on ship and on base they don't make them like this any more. Even got a US Govt. padlock to lock it up. I have it in my office. Some thing you don't see every day. I still wonder how this thing ended up in Montana. Kind of cool in a way. And not bad for free.

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Salvage Sailor

I was thinking of the older ones aboard ship (my ships were built in WWII) - They were canvas with a weighted bottom and many grommets so you could 'deep six' the classified manuals, documents and microfiche that were kept in the safe or secured file cabinets like yours. We had them in CIC, the Radio Room and Signal Shack. They were actually 'destruction' bags but were commonly called burn bags. We kept flares in the safe to burn/melt the contents & toss them in the bag using asbestos welding gloves. If there was no time to burn anything, it just went into the bag and over the side.

 

Haven't been able to find a photo on the web of one but they're similar to the mail bag in this photo (no weight or rows of brass grommets to let the seawater in)

 

Nice USN file cabinet, it has the same lock and chain that's on the reverse side of the mailbag.

ARS-25 USS SAFEGUARD Mailbag 002.jpg

Seabag Lock 02.jpg

Seabag Lock 03.jpg

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When they closed all the bases in the bay area they had some warehouses of stuff from the bases for sell. Went and check one out at Alameda Naval Air at the time I did not think this stuff was cool I did not have the collecting bug yet. Remember those Govt steel desk and those metal chairs and probably these file cabinets. So I bought nothing now I regret it I bet I could of got one of those file cabinets that had a safe section instead of a drawer. And maybe a Govt large safe dam a missed opportunity.

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Salvage Sailor

I still come across them in decommissioned State office buildings and used car dealerships which were stocked with US Government surplus furnishings.

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Had a Freind who was retired Navy and was a yard bird in San Diego before he moved to MT he had a large US Navy Govt safe he used as a gun safe. His wife got rid of all that stuff when his health went south. Would of like to get my hands on that safe.

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As a retired grounds manager at a federal prison, a lot of our material came from surplus, saw a lot of military file cabinets go to the salvage yard. We even got some fireproof ones from the White House, but they were way to heavy to move and the crook operating the forklift (also military surplus) dropped one of them on the cab of the truck, and almost crushed the driver. I always saved the little Detroit Arsenal & Kaiser-Frazier brass tags that were on the wooden desks and cabinets.

illinigander

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