Canteen Find

[Guest oneshot]

I found this Canteen on a steep side of a Canyon you wouldnt choose to walk. Well made from aluminum, marked "Japan"(circa1950's), missing cap and cloth covering... Makes you wonder...???

[4Falls]

Neat find. Lots of possible stories there.

[billrquimby]

Probably from the 1960s. There were military surplus stores in nearly every town in America after World War II, and they sold surplus U.S. Army canteens and just about everything else dirt cheap as long as it lasted. After their military items were depleted, they started selling stuff from Japan. I used a WWII U.S. canteen as well as a canteen like the one in the photo for a while before they started making them in plastic. Aluminum canteens would last forever, but they gave water a funny taste. .... Bill Quimby

[MULEPACKHUNTER]

Az desert foiled an invation maybe

[Chris]

Surplus was still selling into the 80's..... yellowfront

[billrquimby]

Ahhh, Yellowfront. Bob Hirsch and I did several publishing projects with those stores and sold a lot of maps and booklets in the 1970s. We even sold hunting regulations for a few years by beating Game and Fish to publishing and distributing them. (We had them printed on Sunday, the day after the game commission approved them, and in Yellowfront's stores on Monday, while G&F didn't get theirs out for three weeks.) Yellowfront had a few military surplus items, but it also had lots of new items. It was not like the stores that sold only surplus for the first ten years after WWII. Those stores had a special smell, like mildewed canvas, gun oil, and rust all combined. There would be big piles of stuff everywhere, and you could poke around and find anything from clothing to rocket boxes to airplane compasses to field stoves and nearly everything else that was used in that war. ------ Bill Quimby

[4Falls]

I can remember the Payson Yellowfront. It was my favorite store as a kid. I could buy everything a young boy needed from BB's to innertubes. Bought my first hunting license there. ahhh the good ol' days.

[goinhuntn]

I remember going to Yellowfront as a kid in Lake Havasu loved that store!! Sure do miss the good ole days!

[billrquimby]

"I remember going to Yellowfront as a kid in Lake Havasu loved that store!! Sure do miss the good ole days! " ......... Heck, I remember when there wasn't a Lake Havasu City, and I remember the controversy when it was learned that our State Land Department had sold the land for virtually nothing to the developer. Those were the really good ol' days! ............Oneshot: I apologize for highjacking your thread. Your canteen was a nifty find. ........Bill Quimby