WWII Scarce \"EDWARD KATZINGER CO. 1943\" Zinc-plated M1942 Canteen CUP for Sale

On eBay Now...

WWII Scarce \"EDWARD KATZINGER CO. 1943\" Zinc-plated M1942 Canteen CUP For Sale

$WWII Scarce \$
When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

WWII Scarce \"EDWARD KATZINGER CO. 1943\" Zinc-plated M1942 Canteen CUP:
$67.50

VERYRARE MAKER! From 1943 the first years of production of the M1942 Cup by the EdwardKatzinger Company ofChicago, Illinois!

Thisis a solid, completely dent-freeexample of the \'raw\' edge LIPwith much of its BRIGHT,gleaming \'Zinc-plating\' still evident. These Tin or Zinc-plated Cups,known as the \"ugly Cups\"due to their susceptibility to corrosion, pitting, and rust, rarelysurvive with dents and significant interior and exterior corrosion.But this example is a very collectible piece!!!

+Much BRIGHT\'Zinc-plating\' on the exterior!

+ZEROdents to the unsupported \"raw\" Lip! Very early-warM1942 CANTEENCUP, “Tinned or Zinc-plated” thatintroduced the 2nd pattern LIPwith the dangerously sharp \'raw\' edge!

+ZERO dentsto the body!

+ZERO bendsor deformation to the folding steel handle!

+CRISPLYand legibly (and uniquely) stamped at the bottom corner:

BottomLine: This is from a RAREcontractor of a SCARCEexample of a M1942\"Tinned or Zinc-plated” Corrosion Resistant Steel CUP.

The \"EDWARDKATZINGER CO.\" ofChicago, Illinois, was known for their line of tin pans for bakeries,and later for a diverse line of kitchen tools and cutlery under a newname, “Ekco Products Co.”beginning in 1945. The EDWARDKATZINGER COMPANY wasthe only contractor, or the scores ofcontractors to stamp the Cup at the bottom corner, perpendicularto the longest dimension of theCup!

U.S.

EDWARDKATZINGER CO.

1943

WithAluminum being declared a \'conserved metal\' 1942 and these \"tinned\"Cups appeared for ONEfiscal/production year only, 1942-1943,before being removed, and many marked \"I.C.\"

This simplymeant that though still serviceable, once turned in, it was not to bereissued. TheseM1942\"Tinned or Zinc-plated\" Cups withthe \"Raw-edge\"Lip had a tendency to develop a splotched,mottled appearance over time and are now known among collectors asthe \"ugly cups\" due to their inability to resist corrosion.

These havealways beenSCARCE,but more so with each passing year! But this is a VERYRARELY seen manufacturer, that produced very, very few Canteen Cups during the years fiscal years 1942-1943. And this example is dated \"1943,\" the first year of production and the M1942 Cup.

+ Thisparticular example is the EARLIESTiteration of the M1942CUP with the oftensplotchy-mottled, formerly BRIGHT \"Tin-plating\" andthe dangerously sharp \"Raw-edge\"LIP which was believed to helpdissipate HEAT atthe Lip.

+ ZEROdents either to the unsupported \"Raw-edge\"LIP or to the BODYof the Cup!!!

+ In anattempt to conserve Aluminum for aircraft production, \"Tinnedof Zinc-plated\" IRON,highly susceptible to rust, was substitutedmid-year in 1942 forALUMINUM for most items outsideof aircraft manufacture. Thesetypically appear with a very mottled appearance with a great deal ofcorrosion due to the loss of plating.

+ NOTE!This Cup was NEVERstamped “I.C.”

By the endof 1943 the QuartermasterDepartment declared this modelobsolete, and it was issued \"LimitedStandard\"and as theCups were turned into a field depot, each was stamped \"I.C.\",and another iteration of the M1942 Cup, one with \"Folded-edge\"LIP design was introduced andissued... and eventually, by war\'s end, numerous contractorsreturnedto production of the WWI \"Rolled-edge\"LIP design!

(Theoverstamp, \"I.C.\"was used since the Civil War by theQuartermaster Corps to designate equipment, i.e.muskets, saddlery, orordnance, etc. that was deemed to beeither \'obsolete\',or \'unserviceable,\'...orboth. This Cup was \'technicallyserviceable\'...but obsolete...yet obviously issued!

+ The oncehighly REFLECTIVE finishon the exterior and interior is has now acquired numerous tinyscattered spots of superficial corrosion on the plating and hasacquired the authenticating ‘patina’ of true age.

+ ZEROscrapes, scratches, but with the usuallong-term storage traces of corrosion staining on the INTERIOR fromthe past 80+ years of storage!

+ The\"Tin-Plated\" SteelHANDLE locksin place perfectly. The ATTACHMENTPLATE is secured with fourround-head rivets.

*****

History of Edward Katzinger Company...and EKCO:

“Wetaught your mother a new way to open chicken soup,” read thepresumptuous tagline of a 1965 advertisement for the Miracle CanOpener—arguably the most recognizable of the thousands ofutensils produced by the EKCO Housewares Company. “She usedto work her fingers to the bone, opening those cans, until weinvented the Miracle Can Opener about thirty-five years ago.It had a gear (of all things!) and long handles you could get a goodgrip on. And when you turned the key, it cut through the tin as easyas pie. We’d made a major breakthrough.

“Justabout every family got one of our can openers. And anybody who wastall enough to reach the kitchen drawer used it. Since then, we’vedeveloped bigger and better EKCOcanopeners, but we keep selling this one. As many as six or sevenmillion a year. Maybe because it’s so handy. Maybe because itbrings back warm memories. Of all that chicken soup?”

Maybe it’salso a bit sad to presume we’d all nostalgically associate our momswith a can opener, but when EKCOran these ads in magazines like BetterHomes and Gardens in ‘65,it was a tactical maneuver more than anything; a way to reassure thegeneral populous that everything was still “business as usual” atthe 75 year-old company—even though it definitely wasn’t.

Despite posting a profit in everyyear of its existence, dating back to 1889, EKCO (a namederived from its original identity as the Edward KatzingerCompany) officially surrendered its independence in September of1965, becoming a division of the massive conglomerate known as theAmerican Home Products Corporation. It was the beginning ofthe end for EKCO as a Chicago institution, but they werehardly in a position to complain about it.

Fordecades, EKCOitself had been the conquering king of the non-electric housewaresmarket, absorbing dozens of smaller businesses across the country andhuddling their goods under its Chicago tent; from cutlery andflatware to baking supplies, pressure cookers, chemicals, plasticaccessories, aluminum foil containers, bathroom fixtures, lighting,building supplies, and more. It was the growing fear of antitrustlawsuits, in fact, that may have inspired 71 year-old EKCOchairman Arthur Keating to retire from his position and sell thefamily business to American HomeProducts for a cool $145 millionin stock.

Keating,despite being the son of company founder Edward Katzinger, sufferedno blind allegiances to the past. Case in point, as a Jewish manobserving the horrors of World War II, he unflinchingly changed boththe official corporate name of the business (from EdwardKatzinger Co. to the EKCOProducts Company) and his ownsurname (from Katzinger to Keating)—likely for no other reason thanto sound less German. As a businessman, he also helped bring thelow-price, volume-based sales strategy of retailers like SearsRoebuck into the manufacturer’sarena. “We never talk about what the company can get from awholesaler or department store,” he told Fortunemagazine in 1949. “We talk about what theconsumer will pay for it.”

In otherwords, rather than crafting the ideal product for a certain need—likethe old-school manufacturers did— EKCOoffered up every option, from a15-cent can opener to a 6-dollar one, paired with any handle color inthe rainbow. It was the new 20th century “deluge” style ofcapitalism fully realized, and, to borrow a phrase, it “taught yourmother a new way.”

Ekcoes ofthe Past

“If growing up in a businessinfluences the direction of a young man’s career, Arthur Keatingwas perhaps predestined to devote his business life to EkcoProducts Company.” —Chicago Tribune,July 17, 1961

Arthur Katzinger/Keating certainlyhad a headstart in life that many sons of immigrants did not. Hisfather, Edward Katzinger (b. 1863), did the heavy lifting—movingfrom his native Austria to the U.S. as an 18 year-old in 1881;adapting his old world skills as a “tinner” to factory life inNew York City; then relocating out West to start his own business,first in Kansas City, then Chicago, where he specialized inmanufacturing baking tins for the commercial baking industry.

By the timeArthur was born in 1894, the Katzinger family (including dad, motherAnna, sister Laura and big brother Sidney) were still living in asmall apartment above Edward’s tinsmith shop at 369 S. HalstedStreet (850 S. Halsted by current street numbering) on the Near WestSide. This home was likely part of the JaneAddams Hull House, an importantmulti-ethnic housing development that welcomed many immigrants intothe city, and has since become a Historic Landmark on the campus ofthe University ofIllinois-Chicago. Back in the1890s, poverty was the norm in the neighborhood, but EdwardKatzinger—who once took a side gig making cornice work for the“White City”at the 1893 ColumbianExposition—was the classicambitious outlier.

While heonly had about a half-dozen workers on the payroll in the late ‘90s,that number grew to 22 by the time the business was finallyincorporated as the EdwardKatzinger Company in 1903 (the“EKCO”shorthand nickname first came into use about a year later).

In 1909, after about a decade in asmall plant at West Washington Street and Canal Street, the KatzingerCo. moved down the road to a new five-story building at 120 NorthPeoria Street; next-door to the headquarters of a baking supplyrival, the J.W. Allen Company. Here, Katzinger and hisexpanded team of 40 employees continued to focus primarily on makingequipment for professional bakers, confectioners and ice cream parlors, but a new line of low-cost baking pans for the consumermarket laid the groundwork for Ekco’s great leap forward. By1914, the staff had doubled again, and an expanded plant was in theworks on the same block as the Peoria Street building, on the cornerof Washington and Sangamon Street.

During thissame period, young Arthur Katzinger—who was studying mechanicalengineering at the ArmourInstitute (akathe Illinois Institute ofTechnology)—might indeed havelooked predestined to a fruitful career with the family business. Buthis path had far more twists and bends than it appeared.

Before getting into college, Arthurhad actually been something of a troubled teen; so much so that hewas expelled from high school for his consistent misconduct. Afrustrated Edward responded by vanquishing his son to a militaryschool, where the youngster supposedly learned the ills of his waysand came back reformed; eventually captaining half the sports teamsat his college, despite a stocky 5’4” build.

With his older brother Sidney alreadyemployed at EKCO, Arthur wasn’t technically the heirapparent. But there was still an understanding, or an obligation, asto where his destiny lied.

“One dayin 1916 I was graduated from Armourinstitute,” he told the Tribunein 1961, “and I reported for work [atEKCO]the same day.” It was plant operations work; a lot of it on thenight shift; a boy amongst men.

Less than three years later, inJanuary of 1919, Arthur’s mother and his brother Sidney both diedtragically during the Spanish flu epidemic. Sidney was only 28.

Shortly thereafter, Arthur recalledthat his father “took me out of the factory and told me to run thecompany.”

Being from the generation he was,Arthur Keating never communicated any sense of trauma from theseevents, instead attributing his struggles with insomnia to acircadian hangover from those old night-shift schedules of his youth.By 1923, he was vice president of the Edward Katzinger Company,and for all intents and purposes, more in charge of the goings onthere than his father, who remarried that year and entered a bit ofan early retirement.

Big Growth

“The tremendous increase in thevolume of our business is the inevitable result of the high qualityand reasonable prices of our products. It is but one phase whichsymbolizes the earnest, honest endeavor of every individual in ourorganization to give his best efforts in the production of the finestbaker’s equipment.”—from a “Statement of Policy” by thepresident of the Edward Katzinger Co., 1921

When EdwardKatzinger went into business in the 1880s, bake pans were generallymade-to-order, with no standardization or bulk production inexistence. By contrast, when his son Arthur started managing theplant in the early 1920s, it was producing about 70,000 pans per day,all at stock sizes, ready for the masses. This was basically thetemplate from which all other branches of the EKCObusiness would eventually grow.

In a 1921 article in the NorthwesternMiller, the Katzinger factory on West WashingtonStreet was profiled as a shining example of modern baking panproduction.

“The mainobject of the factory seems to be that eternal saving on the cost.Every operation that can be combined with another operation in amachine that is already doing other work saves something. All thesavings combine to make possible a far better pan at a much lowercost. . . . Quantity production enables the manufacturers to mass thesmall savings into a large total, and they have not only done this onpans but they have passed on the saving to the consumer in the shapeof lower prices.”

With hisdegree in mechanical engineering, Arthur Keating wasn’t justplaying an active role in the machining efficiency of his factory, hewas designing many of EKCO’smodern pans and utensils, as well.

Having survived the materialshortages of World War I, EKCO’s growth was untethered inthe ’20s. Another new plant opened in 1923, covering a whopping 17acres at Cicero and Armitage Avenue. And in 1927, “King Arthur”began his conquest of the housewares industry on a national scale,starting with the acquisition of Baltimore’s venerable AugustMaag Company, a maker of commercial baking ware (operations werelater moved to Chicago).

Two yearslater, EKCObegan negotiations with the A &J Manufacturing Company, autensil company in Binghamton, New York. If successful, buying A&Jwould effectively turn EKCO intoa new leader in the consumer kitchenware market.

There was a stumbling block, however.

“All the legal work involved inacquiring A & J Tool company had been straightened out andthe purchase was to take effect 10 days after the market crash,”according to Arthur Keating, who was leading the tense negotiationswithout the aid of his father, whose health was declining. “We hada lot of ‘market outs’ but decided to go through with it—for 1million dollars in cash!”

It was a swing for the fences thatBabe Ruth would have found impressive, and it basically ensured thatEKCO would not only survive the approaching Depression, butthrive through much of it.

The EKCOEmpire

Shortly after the A&J buyout,EKCO debuted the Miracle Can Opener, just one of manyinnovative tools patented by the company’s prolific new designerMyron J. Zimmer.

With consumers operating on tightbudgets, the appeal of these affordable, handy doo-dads was greaterthan ever; seen more as “wise buys” rather than cheap substitutesfor heftier utensils. The same philosophy applied to EKCO’s newlines of cutlery, following the purchase of the Geneva Cutlery Co.(of Geneva, NY) in 1934.

PerhapsEKCO’s biggestfinancial windfall of the ‘30s, however, came with their jump intothe pre-war British housewares market. With most UK manufacturersstill operating by the stuffy rules of the past, ArthurKatzinger/Keating took some advice from one of his company’s topcustomers, Woolworth, and opened up a subsidiary business in thedepressed town of Burnley in Lancashire, giving it the appropriately‘Britishy’ name of Platersand Stampers, Ltd.

Stocking the Burnley factory withabout $900,000 worth of mostly used machinery and equipment in 1937,Keating watched Platers and Stampers become a $4 millioncompany by the end of World War II, with the “Sky-Line” and“Ovenex” lines outselling the more esteemed brands made inSheffield, and the “Prestige” line taking over thepressure cooker market.

Doingbusiness in Britain is much easier than in the USA,” Keating latertold Fortune,“because we design and price our products right, to sell in volume.Britain needs more manufacturers who will do that.”

During the war, it was obviously hardfor manufacturers in both Britain and the U.S. to focus much on theirtraditional products. Following Edward Katzinger’s death in 1939,Arthur took the aforementioned bold steps of renaming the company(and himself), creating the EKCO Products Company in 1944. Themain factory at Cicero and Armitage was primarily a defense plantduring the war years, but Keating was still wheeling and dealing,acquiring the stainless steel flatware of the Sta-Brite ProductsCorp. (New Haven, CT) in 1943, and the E.L. Tebbets Spool Co.(Locke Mills, Maine) and Massillon Aluminum Co. (Massillon,OH) in 1945. He also established a $400,000 research laboratory fromwhich many new precision tool-making machines were developed.

Post-war, the EKCO Army haddomain over most non-electric kitchenware in the U.S., withsubsidiaries soon acquired in Canada, Mexico, Germany, and as faraway as Australia. Satellite U.S. factories and offices wereoperating in Ohio, Maryland, California, Wisconsin, New Jersey, NewYork, Massachusetts . . . just about everywhere

1927:August Maag Co. (Bakeware), Baltimore, MD
1929: A and J MFG. Co.(Kitchen Tools), Binghamton, NY
1934: Geneva Cutlery Co. /Geneva Forge (Cutlery), Geneva, NY
1943: Sta-Brite ProductsCorp. (Flatware), New Haven CT
1945: E.L. Tebbets Spool Co.(Rolling Pins), Locke Mills, ME
1945: Massillon Aluminum Co.(Cooking Utensils), Massillon, OH
1946: Murdock Metal Products,Inc. (Kitchen Utensils), Chicago
1947: Byesville Products Co.(Steel Tableware), Byesville, OH
1948: Bergen Forge Co.(Flatware Knives), Bergen, NJ
1949: Diamond Silver Co. (SilverFlatware), Lambertville, NJ
1949: National Glaco Chemical Corp.(Pan Chemicals), Chicago
1951: Minute Mop Co. (Sponge Mops),Chicago
1952: Republic Stamping & Enameling (Enamelware),Canton, OH
1954: Adams Plastics Co. Inc. (Handles), Holyoke,MA
1954: Autorye Co. (Bathroom Fittings), Oakville, CT
1954:McClintock MFG Co. (Pans and Containers), Whittier, CA
1955:Kilgore MFG Co. (Plastic Housewares), Westerville, OH
1955:Shore Machine Corp. (Ice Cream Scoops), New York, NY
1956:Kennetrack Corp. (Sliding Door Hardware), Elkhart, IN
1956: RubyLight Co. (Fluorescent Lights), Los Angeles, CA
1956: P.R.Mallory Plastic Inc. (Bathroom Accessories), Chicago
1957: FelcoLighting Co. (Lighting), Dallas, TX
1957: Emro MFG Co. (BottleOpeners), St. Louis, MO
1957: Worley & Co. (Steel Lockers),Pico, CA
1959: Davis Rolling Pin Co. (Pins and Cutting Boards),Detroit, MI
1960: Washington Steel Co. (Door Hardware), Pico,CA
1960: Engineered Nylon Products (Molded Parts), Elkhart,IN
1961: Berkeley Products Co. (Closet Accessories), JerseyCity, NJ
1962: Ekco-Aloca Container Inc. (Foil Containers),Wheeling, IL

“King ofthe Kitchen”

According to a profile in Timemagazine in 1952, Arthur Keating’s empire was now combining toproduce more than 2,000 different products (almost one for every oneof its 2,275 employees), many of them in streamlined, multi-colorstyles created by the country’s most famous industrial designer,Raymond Loewy; whom Keating had on a $75,000 salary.

Sold under brand names like A&J,Flint, and Ovenex, the EKCO arsenal brought in $35 millionin gross earnings in 1951, moving 375,000 egg beaters, 10.5 millionkitchen knives, 2.5 million rubber-ended bottle stoppers, 1.5 millionpots and pans, and 12 million can openers, according to Time.In a lot of cases, individual households were purchasing thesesame items repeatedly in a calendar year—a phenomenon that didn’tsurprise Arthur Keating. It was part of his business model.

“A minormystery to most U.S. males is the fact that housewives always seem tohave room for another spoon or egg beater in their crowded kitchencabinets,” reported the Timearticle. “But Chicago’s 57 year-oldArthur Keating solved the mystery long ago. As head of EkcoProducts Co. and king of theU.S. kitchenware business, it is his job to make women want ever morehousehold gimmicks. Keating estimates that nearly a third of existinggadgets disappear every year; they are lost in the garbage, cartedaway by children, or battered shapeless by amateur earth-movers in thebackyard. Keating makes it is his business to put the rest out ofdate.”

They’rehere now,” read a typical example of a mid-century EKCOnewspaper ad, “new, wonderfuland totally beautiful EKCOProducts . . . housekeepingtools that make fun of housework . . . that replace old tiredhousehold tools with streamlined efficiency. Now your dreams cometrue!”

Rather than using nostalgia to sellcan openers, as they would in the late 1960s, the 1950s version ofEKCO was more in line with the era—forward thinking, spaceage, NEW NEW NEW. . . but still, lest it be forgotten, cheap!

“When a housewife doesn’t feelshe can afford $200 for a dishwasher,” Keating told Timemagazine, “she will still spend 15 cents for a new potatopeeler.”

This samephilosophy, in a way, applied to EKCO’scommercial clients, such asSwanson—creatorsof the first iconic “TV Dinner”packaged meals.

“The early ‘50s was an excitingtime in the foil container industry,” says former EKCO engineerJohn Duskey, whose father Edmund Duskey was part of Keating’sengineering team during the era in question. “In the first half ofthe twentieth century, metal containers such as pie plates were madein multiple operations: blanking and forming, curling and finishing.If this could be done in a single operation and put into production,there would be substantial cost savings for customers, andsubstantial sales increases for companies doing the stamping.”

According to Duskey, this challengewas of “particular interest” to an aging Arthur Keating, who wasstill a mechanical engineer at heart.

“Nobodyknows for sure who was the first to make a single-operation foil pieplate, but it is certain that Arthur Keating was able to convince thecustomers that the curl should be half-above and half-below theflange,” Duskey says. “Ekcobecame the leader in promoting and selling these containers in theearly 1950s, and once the standard specifications had been developed,the more costly tooling for square and rectangular containers,including the TV Dinner plate,could be built.”

As one result of that success, EKCOformed a corporate partnership with the Aluminum Company ofAmerica (Alcoa) in 1955, creating Ekco-Alcoa Container, Inc.,complete with its own dedicated plant in suburban Wheeling, IL. Bythe time EKCO subsequently bought out Alcoa’s sharesin 1962, the newly renamed EKCO Containers subsidiaryrepresented 13 percent of EKCO’s overall business. TheCicero Avenue factory, still focused on the usual kitchen lines,became the HQ for the also newly minted EKCO Housewares Co., whichopened a Franklin Park facility shortly before the sale to AmericanHome Products in 1965.

Arthur Keating, though technicallyretired, took a place on the board of American Home, but henever really saw the ultimate consequences of the deal. He died in1967 at age 73.

After theSale

In EKCO’s final year ofindependence, in 1964, it had posted record sales of $117 millionwith $7.6 million in earnings. And while a merger/buyout withAmerican Home Products might have made the company’sChicago-area employees uneasy, it didn’t spell instant doom by anymeans.

“In the sixties, American Homewas a diverse conglomerate which sold a variety of householdproducts—everything from Chef Boyardee to Aspirintablets—so it seemed that EKCOwould fit into theirproduct lines,” says John Duskey.