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Greg, others have already mentioned the date on the bottom of the cans, while
others have mentioned the sealers available. On the chance that your
question about water versue gas cans means that you don't know which is
which, I'll throw in my 2cents worth.
The US Gas cans all had a threaded opening with a twist off cap. Very early
cans were galvanized and weighed about 15% more than a standard can, and all
of these that I've seen have two "ears" on the cap rather than the standard
four "ears".
All water cans that I have seen from WWII until they replaced them with the
plastic versions have a cam lock type lid. There is a large lever at the top
of the hole cover that swings back over the hole cover and thus swings away
two finger like cams under the lid that allows the lid to be opened. This
opening is considerably larger than the gas can opening. The ones I have are
3-1/2" wide at the opening. To my knowledge there are two different types of
water can lids during World War II. One is a simple plain flat lid like
described above. The other has a 1/2" knock out place in the center of the
lid that is like the one above. This (I am told) was to allow a 1/2" pipe
faucet to be mounted in the lid, and the container used as a stationary
coffer can or water can, that individuals could fill cups/canteens without
spilling the whole thing. There is a third "cam lock" type lid that is on
the U.S. Marine Corp gas cans, but it is only 1-1/2" wide and is located off
center of the can. I do not know if these were ever used for water or not,
but I suspect that being rather "non standard" that they were used for
gasoline only.
Good Luck, Tom Campbell - Birmingham, Alabama
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jun 01 2000 - 22:37:12 PDT