USCG Pearl Harbor fingerprint dog tag

[Vincennes]

Here is my latest acquisition.

 

Crow was an interesting man. Born in Iowa in 1893, he only went to 5th grade in school, enlisted in the Navy in WW1, married in 1919,  enlisted in the Coast Guard in the 20's. His son fell overboard and died on the USS Southard in Hawaii about 3 weeks before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and he was a Chief Machinist Mate on a Coast Guard cutter in the channel leaving Pearl Harbor at the time of the attack. He was transferred stateside the next year. I need to fill in a gap after that, but he died in California in 1981. His only other child, a daughter, died in Pennsylvania in 2013.

Another interesting thing about this dog tag is that it is NOT made of Monel metal.  It looks, feels and sounds (when you drop it) different than the Navy Monel dog tags. Also it weighs about .5 Oz and the Monel Navy tags weigh about .3 oz. It is also thicker. Not sure what metal it is made of.

 

Paul

[muddyboots]

Great tag with a very interesting history thanks for sharing. And the tag is probably made of silver. I have a few made of it.

[Vincennes]

Silver? That's a new one on me. I have heard of stainless steel, but never silver vintage dog tags. Can you post one?

 

Paul

 

 

[muddyboots]

The Coast Guard were the only ones to do this. They tend to get a dark sometimes black oxidation on the surface.

[Vincennes]

Thanks, that's Interesting. It looks something like tarnish on a silver coin. But I am not sure mine is silver since it is not tarnished, perhaps it was cleaned?

 

Paul

[muddyboots]

Here’s a more worn example and there is always a chance it was clean but to me it looks silver plus the timeline of the tetanus date puts it in the early war timeline when they were used.

[Vincennes]

I think you are correct. Even on silver coins not all of them have a tarnish.