USMC markings on Thompson magazine pouches

[browningautorifle]

So...are these drum pouches marked USMC?

[RT Ellis]

If that question was directed to me, I don't know. The Marine Corps generally had the contractor print U.S.M.C. on their equipment, and if collectors are reporting examples of this item that they believe are genuine marked U.S.M.C. then they must have been. The Army contract items would not be marked U.S.M.C. and if marked would have been marked U.S. I'm not certain what a "Case, Magazine" is. I have enough trouble resolving examples of field mess equipment against contract information and I'm not into the Thompson SMG and accessories.

I provide the contract information to assist collectors to decide whether a piece of equipment they have is genuine, and properly marked. For example if you have a Case, Magazine that was manufactured by Harian Stitching and it's marked U.S.M.C. more than likely someone marked it to enhance the sale price. Unfortunately neither the specification number or pictures are provided with the raw contract information, so it takes some investigation to determine what item was manufactured. Another confusing factor in this is what I call "collectoreze" that is the accepted collector nomenclature, that has nothing to do with the military nomenclature for an item. I think collectors prefer to ignore the military nomenclature for equipment, but if they had ever been in the military and tried to order something without the correct nomenclature they would have soon learn what a TOE, an equipment catalog, stock number, and nomenclature was for.

To add to the confusion of collecting apparently equipment was manufactured for Lend-Lease that was not marked, and is now being brought onto the collectors market. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if some of these examples were being marked U.S.M.C. to enhance the sale price. It's a dealer's advantage over the uninformed and unwary. U.S. Militaria Forum is overstocked with people that will buy anything that even remotely resembles something military and then post a picture hoping that they "found" something collectible, and haven't got a clue that acquiring reference books and looking at a lot of equipment and photographs is helpful in identifying equipment.

[browningautorifle]

Yes, I had been asking you...what I'm thinking from way out here and much after the fact is that the USMC would mark it's equipment it's self. That would explain the lack of it showing up as new in surplus...

[RT Ellis]

Here are some official images that may be of benefit to this discussion, and some other images are included for general interest, that I forgot I have until this discussion. These images scanned from an ordnance department binder, Record Group 111, located at the National Archives. The two images not from the binder were in Record Group 156 (Chief of Ordnance) files at the National Archives.

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[emmagee1917]

Here's a link . See near the end thereof.
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Chris