So yesterday I posted on Twitter about a project that I’ve had for a while and I’ve finally managed to make time to clean it up and it’s ready for display and possibly for use. I’m going to go through it step by step so bear with me and let me know what you think.
This an Officers private purchase mess tin. It has a registered pattern number that dates between 10 Jul 1914 and 24 Nov 1914. Now that doesn’t mean that it is a Great War item but it mean the design was registered at this point in time and is period appropriate.
Inside the cotton cover you can see the mess tin set. The cover is held in place with a plain leather strap, which isn’t in too bad a condition. The cover also closes with a small light push stud.
The set is formed with a deep pan and a lid that will act as a frying pan. Take the lid off and you can see a small kettle, a handle for both the Pan and Frying pan.
Underneath the kettle is an aluminium plate. Everything sits together very nicely in pot.
Take the lid of the kettle and you have a cup and some lose items. While the cup looks like it has a lid this isn’t the case.
The cup contains these 2 items.
it’s a bit of an odd one to work out what they are until you realise that one of the items is actually upside down.
What we have is a cooker and a small fuel can. My gut feeling is that this may well be a mentholated spirits burner, its about the same size as my old tranga cooker that I would use for wild camping.
Now the 3 arms are added and hey presto a small cooker ready to go for making a brew or doing a bit of bacon.
The last piece is to finish the set and that is to add the handle to the cup.
Slot in the bottom of the handle into the bottom bracket and then press down and slot the top into the top bracket. Job done!
And just to show the pan handle in use.
Overall a very nice period mess set for the Officer in the Field. I just need to keep an eye out for a campaign Knife Fork Spoon Set and then job done. It fits nicely with my Officer’s Field Kit, and will live in my musette bag with my whisky flask, and other essentials.
