Green 20 Rnd Thompson Mags.

In recent years I've seen significant numbers of beige green 20 rnd Thompson mags for sale on the U.K. surplus market on a number of occasions. The paint appears to have been professionally applied over the standard blued finish and not done by a bloke with a brush in a shed. I have seen or heard that these green Thompson mags were intended solely for the use of the British Home Guard but I have not had this confirmed. I have never seen the 30 rnd Thompson mag painted green over the blued finish in this manner.


Is any-one able to, please, confirm that these mags were indeed intended for the Home Guard or perhaps they were painted for other reasons such as additional corrosion resistance???


Have any of our American members seen these green Thompson mags for sale in the states? I believe that many of the 20 rnd mags produced were sent to the U.K. and that they were not manufactured for long before being replaced by the 30 rnd mag.


Thanks for any information.

I have never heard of the green paint on the Thompson 20 round magazines in the USA, maybe some advanced collectors might have additional information. I have seen examples of 20 round Thompson magazines
that have had the holes filled in with silver solder to keep the dirt out which was said to have been done in North Africa by British Armorers during WW2.

Also checked the book "American Thunder" by Frank Iannamico which covers all the military Thompson submachine guns, nothing was said of the green paint applied to the magazines.

There's a good chance the paint was applied in UK service when the mags were going to a tropical theatre.

Thanks for the information chaps. If anyone has any additional information on the green paint applied to 20 rnd mags I will be most interested to hear, thanks. I have been cleaning up a few 20 rnd mags recently which I purchased last year with the usual blued finish and I noticed one of them doesn't have the normal manufacturers details marked on it but just has various Patents where the makers details are normally marked. I haven't noticed this before; I wonder if it's an early mag?

Have you looked on the machine gun boards? They have a section on Thompson mag markings.

The early Thompson magazines with the patent dates are for the early Colt 1921 Thompson, these are worth more if in excellent condition. There is also an "error" patent dated magazine that is worth $100 plus. I will attempt to post a photohttps://www.milsurps.com/images/impo.../23v0oif-1.jpg

Green paint was an accepted method of preserving the finish of rifles, SMG's and weapons generally. It was quoted as such together with the paint spec in the EMER's of the day and I would suggest that this is what you have.

Thanks for the info chaps. The mag which I have with just patent markings appears to be the same as RCS's example and so is an early mag but is not in quite as good a condition.

Look for MSCO stamped inside tha mag on the backstrap as this indicates a Maguire mag.

Here is a picture of a green painted 20 rnd Thompson mag which I picked up at a U.K. militaria fair.

Looks more sandy coloured to me. Looks like the early 40's/50's/60's sandy colour that the vehicles and tanks were painted in in Sharja and Aden as opposed to the not-so-sandy more recent colour!

I think that the camera flash has made it look a more sandy colour than it actually is. This is mag photographed with Kodak 35mm film and flash.