Wow! that first pattern meat can is a rare item. Congratulations on the find!

nice score!

The lack of military markings does not rule out military service. The 1908 Stonebridge Folding Lantern was used by all arms of the US Army and was ubiquitous in Allied Service. They occur with medical and commissary corps stampings in the upper left corner of the front facing side of the "roof". of the marked examples, the former seem to be more common.   Those used outside of these two services in the US Army were normally without such markings. It is not uncommon to see them painted black as well.   Aluminum lanterns were not, as far as I know, used by the military but they were manufactured for the civilian market some time after the Great War. Your lantern falls under this category.    Still a cool item! I like vintage camping gear as well as militaria, and one of my favorite items is a depression era lantern made out of a Mason jar and pieces of scrap metal with a wire bail for hanging.

Charles, one more thing. If you do not have any connections at the V.A. develop one. From time to time I find personal affects and they have been good enough to help me out and send me complete packets on those listed as fatal. In the packet you will find a ton of information including insurance payments that extend 20 years. This helps in tracking down family you may want to talk to. A long time ago they would  also help in connecting me with widow's so I could return found items. Most of that generation has passed, but with the information I have been able to find the children and grandchildren. They are good at filling in missing information.

Thanks Rob   BTW Who believes in OMENS just Noticed something while organizing the 100 + Letters Dated from 1940 to 1947 and ONLY 1 With an *************** UPSIDE DOWN STAMP ******************* now showing an INVERTED Aircraft Written on the same day he was KIA Postmarked on 20 MARCH 1945 The ONLY letter in this collection with the Stamp affixed upsidedown (nearly all the letters have planes pictured on stamps) was Returned-TO-Sender STAMP affixed UPSIDE DOWN SHOWING AN INVERTED PLANE  

I have 2 of these Sarco bayonets. One with plastic handles and one leather handled. The leather handled looks exactly like the op. They came without scabbards 

Hey Charles, Sounds like you started digging in the right places. I'm gonna double down on the mishap reports. I have hundreds of military aircraft accident reports from mishaps in my neck of the woods. My hobby is looking for military aircraft crash sites. If you find news paper reports they have minimal information, you can go to Craig Fuller's AAIR site and find more information. Craig sells mishap reports. In them you will find little nuggets on base operations. I have a B-24 mishap report out of Rice AAF. This was the 5th bomber in a week to go down in sight of the base. Aircrews refused to fly until the problems were identified and addressed. You will not read things like this anyplace except in a report.               Yours  David

That is extremely cool, appreciate you sharing! I would love to have one like that in my collection even though its not military issue (though I'm sure many individuals in military service would be ecstatic to have this available to them as well). Your handle is closer in color/composition to the piece which started this discussion than most other Sarco bayos I've seen. Makes me wonder if someone took the Conetta MK2 blade and rolled their own with it. Would make sense why it doesn't look like any of the other Sarco Leather Handled MK2

Not everything cheap is a repro or bad! Just keep collecting and learning more. Try to get some 'hands on' with good patches at the shows. You can find a bargain gem put and about. Sometime the sellers have not done their due diligence and have no idea what they have. I have picked up some really nice patches due to the rarity or hard to identify aspect of them. LEARN your hobby, you will benefit in the military history you will learn and maybe make your wallet fatter too!  

Hi Mike, thanks for sharing Frank Trzaska's "Reproduction Recognition" page. I take it you think this is one of the Sarco commercial pieces then? I would love your opinion on how they made the leather handles look so clean/dark on this particular piece compared to the leather handles on most Sarco Conetta MK2 bayonets. Even the ones in the advertisement you show have much lighter colored handles and the leather doesn't seem as tight/uniform.