A Good Day at the Swap Meet

Hit the local swapper this morning. First goodie to turn up was this RG34. Seller said his father, a WW2 U.S. Army Vet, had brought it back from the ETO after the war. Code is rco45 with tin painted tan. Inside were the contents shown...sheet-steel oiler, (which looks like it has a phosphate finish on the hull, and bottom cap "in the white"), twisted wire chain, both brushes (with the addition of old fishing-lure swivel clips attached to the hooks) and two ancient, oil-soaked pieces of heavy flannel. Sadly no spoon, but for $40. no complaints here...

Nice one Fred!

Pat

Real nice find of later piece! timothy

On my list

Wow... tan and a stamped oiler....jackpot.

Put me in line if you ever sell

Yeah, that was a nice grab for sure

Thanks guys. I was equally pleased. Regarding the sheet-steel oiler, the other two I have came in "arr4" kits. Both are blued with one having a welded seam line down the length of the oiler tube. The other has a weld seam around the center of the tube. The oiler in the kit pictured does not exhibit any seams...only extrusion lines or scrapes down the length of the tube, so it was formed that way. This must be an easier expedient than welding, and the final form of the sheet-steel oiler.

Great !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great oiler.

Slash said:

Great oiler.

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Ja! I was talking to a fellow collector yesterday about RG34s in general. He has one sheet-steel oiler with the weld seam around the waist of the hull. Said he has been looking, but unsuccessful in finding the variant with weld seam along the length of the hull. I thought the one with the long seam was the more typical of the two. His contention was the tubes with central seam were likely made of scrap tubing bits (letting nothing go to waste). Guess this makes sense...

pwcosol said:

Ja! I was talking to a fellow collector yesterday about RG34s in general. He has one sheet-steel oiler with the weld seam around the waist of the hull. Said he has been looking, but unsuccessful in finding the variant with weld seam along the length of the hull. I thought the one with the long seam was the more typical of the two. His contention was the tubes with central seam were likely made of scrap tubing bits (letting nothing go to waste). Guess this makes sense...

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I'm not sure Fred. Have nearly 300 examples of the sheet metal oilers documented in a spreadsheet and the welded examples (around the waist) outnumber the seamless pieces nearly three to one. I have never seen a sheet metal oiler with the weld seam along the length of the body and the piece you mention is the only example that I have in the data base.

The welded examples being fabricated from scrap tubing theory has some merit. On the other hand, it seems strange to me that there would be more of the salvage welded pieces than the solid tubing if they were being made from left over scrap material. It is however a limited sample size.

Slash said:

I'm not sure Fred. Have nearly 300 examples of the sheet metal oilers documented in a spreadsheet and the welded examples (around the waist) outnumber the seamless pieces nearly three to one. I have never seen a sheet metal oiler with the weld seam along the length of the body and the piece you mention is the only example that I have in the data base.

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Your thoughts got me off my butt and into the kits today. Also went thru my old notes and inventory card index. When I looked at my two current kits with these oilers, one is welded just off center of the tube. The other does not exhibit any welding along either axis. However, on an old inventory sheet I had recorded a kit with sheet-steel oiler welded "the long way". I think that kit was sold when I got the one I have now with what appears to be a seamless sheet-steel oiler, because the entire kit was very nice and the oiler almost new. I never made the correction about the welding on the reused inventory card. Guess this is what comes from sloppy record keeping, but it is usually a infrequent occurrence. There is a possibility I mistook a couple of deeper extrusion lines as ground-over weld, since this kit was likely acquired sometime in the late 1980s, so I plead mea culpa.