Keys?!

Howdy y'all,

Today we're taking a journey into the strange side of our collection, a side where we ask the question: "Is that really a key?" Hopefully today we'll find some answers to that question.

The idea for this piece came to me when my fellow curator Maddie, when they plopped some objects on our desk and said something like, "Do you know what these are?". I answered promptly, "Probably keys." Which is fair answer, considering what encompass the scope of our humble museum. But upon a more thorough inspection, I came to the obvious question: what qualifies a key?

Object B

Object A

These little metal objects really sparked my curiosity about this question, but first I had to find out what on earth they are. With my archaeology training kicking in, I first did a close examination of the artifacts and wrote out a vivid description, cataloging every detail that I could. These object appear to be exact copies of one another with the only slight difference being the level of corrosion on the metal suggestion that one maybe older than the other. They are approximately 1 1/2" in length and 2/3" in width at the widest and tappers to 1/2" at the narrowest. Upon further inspection, I found inscriptions that were pressed into the metal when it was still hot.

This is where things get interesting. While the design of the two objects appears to be identical, the inscriptions are different. Object A says "U.S. SPEAKER" with the U.S. about twice the fount size as SPEAKER. Object B on the other hand says "U.S. G.G. GREENE 1955", again with the US being twice as large as the other text. It is my assumption that, on object B, the date indicates the year in which this object was created, but outside of pure speculation there is no further evidence for this.
After gathering all the evidence a physical description could provide, it was time to hit the internet to find more information. My first approach was a reverse image search. That means uploading a photo of one of these objects and seeing results for similar images. Right away I was able to find a match. These little metal objects are actually U.S. Army issue can openers! More specifically they are p-38 can openers. So in a way, they are the keys to the MRE's.

It is unclear how these little can openers found their way into our collection. It is possible that someone mistook them for a strange little key, as I did, and donated it to us, or someone who used them during their service to our country saw fit to leave a memory in the form of their old can opener. No matter how these little things found their way to the Baldpate, we are happy to add them to our collection and serve the memory of those who bravely served our country.