I have hit a few cups and canteens in aluminum , looked old, were they aftermarket , who knows....... or were they made out of the USA, etc...????

Most WW2 canteen and canteen cups with folding handle, along with mess kits and stamped food trays were manufactured using stainless steel. I have never seen these units made from aluminum. During the Viet Nam episode they began making canteens out of O.D. green plastic but these would get moldy on the inside unlike stainless steel. I have several of these canteen/cup kits and they are stainless.

Thanks for the confirm 308. One thing I have noticed for the longest time is that metals all seem to have a different "feel" to them. I can identify many metals simply by touching them. Of course, sight plays a large part of the identification process too, many metals are somewhat easy to identify on sight alone. Not something I can explain but something I can do. Weird huh?

I think willy is correct, a lot the ww2 , mess kits, were not steel, anyhow you can tell if it's steel, use a magnet .....and the non-steel has a low luster finish too.....

These were manufactured long enough ago that they are completely made of steel, not stainless but steel. One is marked as 1959 manufacture and the other was somewhere during Vietnam. They didn't feel like aluminum when I bought them so I got 'em both. I would have left aluminum behind too since it's so easy to damage not to mention the possibility of becoming contaminated and killed with aluminum oxides.

I steer clear of anything aluminum. Cabela's (the only place I have found this and it is in with their knives and not their camping supplies) has a nice little set of made in america silverware that are stainless steel that are set up like a swiss army knife but each utensil is usable and large enough to feel real in your hand. Yet it is compact. And I have packed a porcelain coated bowl and cup for each of us. Doesn't fit into a nice little kit like this but the cost was much less and no aluminum.

What I found were two US Army mess kits. Here's an eBay listing I found for a visual. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0691027025
One had all of the utensils and the other did not. I got both of these for $25 total. Something for cooking and eating if I'm on the road for any time either running away or trekking to.