Found this old Civil Defense container at a flea market

[LongueCarabine]

I thought this was pretty neat, since I've always been interested in Cold War / Civil Defense items. This particular container was made by the Rheem Mfg. Co. in New Orleans, LA (they made water heaters, among other things) and there is a tag on it that says it came out of the parish courthouse in Lafayette, LA.

Unfortunately there weren't any supplies in it, but it is very clean inside and the it seals nicely.

Anyone else here into Civil Defense stuff? I don't have much, just an old CD fallout shelter sign and a complete radiological set, but I've always liked the history behind them.

[mgmlvks]

Great conversation starter! City Hall basement had quite a number of them when I started in 1988. They went away as we cleaned up stuff. Pretty sure they were sold and not thrown away. Do not recall if they had crackers or anything else in them

[bowenstudios]

I saw several of these a few years ago at a guys house that had a bunch of surplus stuff as well as everything else laying around. I think they were the same size but for stockpiling water. Too bad they were outside and rusted fairly bad.

[Ridge_Runner]

Those containers are in nice shape. Interesting reading the directions for use. I’ve seen a couple of those at a nearby swap/sell shop, but they weren’t in as nice of condition as yours.

My only OCD item is a fallout shelter sign. Came from an older building at work, built in the mid-50’s.



Makes a good avatar, too

[BSAGuy]

I well remember seeing the fallout shelter signs around my small southern town in the 1960's.

[DougA]

I am sure there are quite a number of us on this forum "of a certain age" to have had air raid drills in school.

The school I worked in had those CD barrels in the basement and they were unearthed, so to speak, in the late 80s or early 90s and were disposed of, but one or two were kept and opened and when I retired almost two years ago there was still a display cabinet in one of the hallways with all the items from one of those barrels neatly presented in the case. Sadly, I never took a picture of it.

As I think of it, they did keep the barrels and used them as trash cans in the school for a long time.

[egroscup]

I enjoy the cold war memorabilia also, but don't have too much stuff. We had a local PBS tv program here called 'Ken Kramer's About San Diego. Really interesting and fun program. One episode he went into some local old shelter with an archaeologist and they opened up and tried the crackers. Pretty funny but they were still edible. I emailed him about doing a piece on the San Diego Lamp Co. but I guess he couldn't find enough to make an interesting segment. He did put a quick mention of them at the end of one show with Terry's images so that was cool. E.

[Stovie]

At the time the biscuits were a bit of a scandal, iirc. Some of the firms awarded government contracts to supply them didn't use suitable ingredients or processing or somesuch. Even if they were "good", they weren't very good by all accounts.

I recall seeing the red & yellow hard candies at sporting goods stores or Army Navy Surplus shops. They would open up a can and set them by the cash register. Sort of like complimentary mints at restaurants. At one time all that stuff could hardly be given away. Now it's "collectable", natch.

[OregonMichael]

I had two of those drums at one point; sold one, kept the other. They do make a nice display piece. I love the CD/CP stuff, too. Both that I got were also empty; no tag stating where they'd come from.

[mnhogrider]

If they were dropping nukes over my head and I was down in a fallout shelter, the commode option might be a good thing.

[Rubing]

I picked up this OCD license plate at a flea market to go along with my OCD 200.

[Rubing]

Rob Pontius picked me up this sign at an auction to display with my USFS lanterns.

[LongueCarabine]

I picked up this OCD license plate at a flea market to go along with my OCD 200.

That Civil Defense license plate is beyond cool!