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Unknown shovel


hawkdriver
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A lot of people squirrel away all kinds of things especially post cards.

 

Ever clean out an estate?

 

Its amazing what people have.

But by putting it into a modern day perspective, it's liken to somebody keeping a postcard from Ace Hardware with a picture of a screwdriver on it....

 

And to be perfectly honest, I don't need to do estates...I'm third generation pack rat....Bodes

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Bodes im wrong sorry to even bring it up.

 

After doing several hundred clean outs I must have it confused old advertising postcards with something else.

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Bodes im wrong sorry to even bring it up.

 

After doing several hundred clean outs I must have it confused old advertising postcards with something else.

Sorry about bringing up the idea that people save postcards?.....My grandmother had postcards, but were generally holiday related....This and back in the day, it wasn't unusual to put deceased people (including children) on them....Don't recall whether/not she had these, but some people do collect ones with deceased children...This is rather macabre....Bodes

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I believe that i have located an advertisement showing these shovels for sale. The May, 26th, 1946 issue of The Daily News, New York, NY, has an advertisement for Modell's Sporting Goods that shows the "Jiffy Spade" for sale. The price is .49 cents each. In the advertisement, they call it a "Utility Trench Spade".

 

Daily-News-Sun-May-26-1946.jpg

 

Daily-News-Sun-May-26-1946-1.jpg

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I believe that i have located an advertisement showing these shovels for sale. The May, 26th, 1946 issue of The Daily News, New York, NY, has an advertisement for Modell's Sporting Goods that shows the "Jiffy Spade" for sale. The price is .49 cents each. In the advertisement, they call it a "Utility Trench Spade".

 

Looks pretty much like it.....How'd you locate the ad?.....Bodes

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When I read the "fine print" at the top of the advertisement, it says "Made possible through purchases from the War Assets Administration, U.S. Maritime and Gov't contract terminations". I guess that explains why these shovels used the E.M.P. Co. marked, US shovel blades, and US wood handles. They were acquired from canceled government contracts, just like a number of folks here on the forum have speculated.

I guess this really does put this shovel mystery to rest and firmly in the "solved" category! Post-war, surplus store fabrications, made with new handle mounts and "extra parts" from canceled contracts.

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Looks pretty much like it.....How'd you locate the ad?.....Bodes

You don't suppose the self-inflating life vest is a "Mae West" and the wrist compass for paratrooper use?...Bodes

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I located the advertisements through Newspapers.com. I had to sign up for a "trial membership" to get full access to their archived newspapers. I believe they have nearly all the larger US newspapers, from all across the US, scanned into a database that is searchable. They cover 1919 to the present. When you locate what you are looking for, you can save the entire page as a .pdf file, or jpeg photo file.

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It is fun to look through an array of sporting magazines from the late 1940's and early 1950's, they are chalk full of adds for WWII surplus. You can find many interesting listings. I think almost everything in that add from posy #79 was WWII surplus. Usually, antique shops have these types of magazines, I've bough a fait amount over the years that have adds of interest. Often they are only a buck or two.

 

Something to always keep in mind was that going into 1945 industry was starting to transition back to making goods for the commercial market. Raw materials was in such large abundance coupled with lifting of restrictions on their use. Industry began to really ramp up as the war in Europe began to wind down. As early as the start of 1945, materials were being surplused through the War Assets Administration, being sold publicly. Before VJ-Day, hundreds of contracts were being cancelled daily. Some companies went back to business as usual, some began marketing new products based off of advancements of technologies developed for the war effort. Some actually still continued to produce the same products under government contract but marketed them commercially, those that weren't under copyright or classified. Many of these cancellations of contracts were sudden, leaving tons of raw materials in various states of completion. In the case of this shovel, likely the spade blanks were stamped and ready for assembly but following the cancellation, they were not assembled and sold at scrap metal prices. By the spring and summer of 1945, the WAA was quite busy liquidating tens of thousands of tons of material. Supply depots were filled to the brim on both coasts and in May 1945 troops were slated to come from Europe. There, that equipment sat. Same for the west coast. Cataloged and potentially some ear marked to supply the pending invasion of Japan. As that theater came to an end, deliveries were routed to liquidation centers all in their original crates, sold for pennies on the dollar. Many early entrepreneurs of surplus, on the west coast, made their purchases from auctions at depots in San Francisco. Trucks loaded to the brim. One could only imagine crates as far as the eye could see of gear.

The best representation is to look at civilian publications. Much of their content was very much "war" related from 1942-44. Then compare the content to that being provided in 1945 printings, you hardly see any reference to the war or at least greatly reduced. All adds and commentary was getting back to Life without war, especially after VE-Day.

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As a side note, we often see on the forum people finding GI goods in their granpas garage. Knowing they are a WWII veteran, they assume those items are attributed to their servcie. The relation, is probably not. All this stuff was so easily available through brick'n mortar shops and mail order.

 

Here, some Boy Scouts are using an Engineer wrist compass, c.1955. They grow up, get married, have kids having remnants of their Scouting carrier lingering around the ole garage.

 

post-56-0-99846800-1575564235.jpg

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I located the advertisements through Newspapers.com. I had to sign up for a "trial membership" to get full access to their archived newspapers. I believe they have nearly all the larger US newspapers, from all across the US, scanned into a database that is searchable. They cover 1919 to the present. When you locate what you are looking for, you can save the entire page as a .pdf file, or jpeg photo file.

Thanks for your determination in tracking down the ad. Great detective work! Must be why you are called Sharky, once you latch on to something, you don't let go?

 

Mikie

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  • 2 years later...

I just picked up one of these shovels at a yard sale.

Thank you all for clearing up it's origin.

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