Estate Sale Purchase - Late 80's Prepper

Discussions about US MREs and other US rations
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Scott-GA
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Re: Estate Sale Purchase - Late 80's Prepper

Post by Scott-GA » Tue Apr 20, 2021 9:37 pm

housil wrote:
Tue Apr 20, 2021 5:18 am
If I remember right, the dehydrated patties we ate in the 80s had an extra plastic bag inside. After opening the pouch, you took that extra wrapped patty out and poured hot water in that bag to reconstituted it.
housil,

Thanks for that tip regarding rehydrating in the plastic bag. That makes perfect sense.

Best regards,

Scott

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Scott-GA
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Re: Estate Sale Purchase - Late 80's Prepper

Post by Scott-GA » Tue Apr 20, 2021 9:40 pm

blue87fj60 wrote:
Tue Apr 20, 2021 6:11 am
That’s a great score.
blue87fj60,

Thanks!

I'm away from home for a few days. When I return I'll continue documenting items from this purchase.

Best regards,

Scott

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Scott-GA
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Re: Estate Sale Purchase - Late 80's Prepper

Post by Scott-GA » Tue Apr 20, 2021 9:42 pm

cavguy wrote:
Mon Apr 19, 2021 11:54 pm
Great find! So I have never heard of SI Equipment LTD. But I found this online in an old archive;
SI Equipment Ltd., 17019 Kingsview, Carson, CA 90746. One of the most comprehensive
catalogs for the survivalist. Except for the self-defense books by Tegner and a couple of
overpriced pamphlets, you can hardly go wrong with this list. Catalog price: $2.00.
So appears that this company was a major seller of survival gear. Also I have never seen those freeze dried items sold separately!
cavguy,

Thanks for that information! I've now managed to find a few bits about SI Equipment on the InterWeb. It looks like they probably had a pretty good mail order business 30+ years ago.

Best regards,

Scott

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Tedster
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Re: Estate Sale Purchase - Late 80's Prepper

Post by Tedster » Wed Apr 21, 2021 3:22 am

Looks like you got an excellent deal. Freeze-dried items generally last just short of "forever" or near enough (unlike canned goods, or "retort" packaging wet pack foods).

Unfortunately the Freeze Dried fruits included in the earliest MRE had some problems. Why, I'm not sure. I've heard some people say the packaging had "pinholes". I'm not persuaded that was the specific or exact problem. I do know that even when "new" or at the time of issue when I was a member of the .mil they would (sometimes) be slightly soft. At the time I kind of thought they were more trouble than they were worth for just a bite or two. The Pork and Beef patties are not known to have any problems.

Jim_M1988
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Re: Estate Sale Purchase - Late 80's Prepper

Post by Jim_M1988 » Wed Apr 21, 2021 4:19 am

Bigger haul than Tutankhamun's tomb!
Thoroughly enjoyed reading through that :D

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Scott-GA
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Re: Estate Sale Purchase - Late 80's Prepper

Post by Scott-GA » Wed Apr 21, 2021 1:10 pm

Tedster wrote:
Wed Apr 21, 2021 3:22 am
Looks like you got an excellent deal. Freeze-dried items generally last just short of "forever" or near enough (unlike canned goods, or "retort" packaging wet pack foods).

Unfortunately the Freeze Dried fruits included in the earliest MRE had some problems. Why, I'm not sure. I've heard some people say the packaging had "pinholes". I'm not persuaded that was the specific or exact problem. I do know that even when "new" or at the time of issue when I was a member of the .mil they would (sometimes) be slightly soft. At the time I kind of thought they were more trouble than they were worth for just a bite or two. The Pork and Beef patties are not known to have any problems.
Tedster,

Good information ...Thank you!

Before I left to visit family about 450 miles away from home, I had moved the individual Freeze Dried items (peaches, strawberries, pork patties & beef patties) from the boxes I had purchased them in to a metal cabinet that I think should be rodent proof.

As mentioned, I have found packing slips for at least some of the stuff I bought and I believe the 3 larger boxes of peaches, beef patties & pork patties had several layers that were still packed like they had been when delivered.

Based on this observation and assuming I'm correct, it appears that the box had a layer of a soft synthetic material - maybe a around a tenth of an inch thick or less - put into the bottom of the cardboard box. A 5 packet by 5 packet layer of food was spread across that synthetic material and then another layer of the synthetic material laid on top of the food. So 25 food items per layer until they got 325 packets of food or 13 layers.

So, even though there was quite a number of individual packages of food, care had been taken to protect them by the vendor.

So far the peaches, beef & pork seem to be in excellent condition.

The strawberries may have some issues. Most seem OK but there are a few unopened packages that don't seem to be the right texture. HA! At least a three of these that I did open looked like the picture I had of the "bad package" of strawberries and a couple others might have been nibbled on by rodents (there were a couple of strawberry packages that had holes - bigger than a pinhole - in them). One of the ancient Mountain House packages also had what appeared to be a small rodent hole in it.

Too be honest, I am surprised that I haven't found more rodent damage. I don't think it is uncommon for mice to find their way into basements and such. With all of these items being in carboard containers in that basement... well, after almost 35 years, it is surprising to me that there aren't more chewed holes in this stuff.

I will say, of the packages that may have had rodent holes, once the hole was nibbled through the outer package the mice didn't seem interested in what they found inside. They didn't seem to eat much, if any, of the contents.

Am I wrong to think that the government probably had some specifications regarding the packaging to discourage rodents or other vermin?

Best regards,

Scott
Last edited by Scott-GA on Wed Apr 21, 2021 1:15 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Scott-GA
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Re: Estate Sale Purchase - Late 80's Prepper

Post by Scott-GA » Wed Apr 21, 2021 1:13 pm

Jim_M1988 wrote:
Wed Apr 21, 2021 4:19 am
Bigger haul than Tutankhamun's tomb!
Thoroughly enjoyed reading through that :D
Jim_M1988,

Thanks for the kind words... more to come when I get back home.

Best regards,

Scott

M R Eedy
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Re: Estate Sale Purchase - Late 80's Prepper

Post by M R Eedy » Thu Apr 22, 2021 12:54 pm

I think your suposed to use rum to recon these dried fruits

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Hardtack
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Re: Estate Sale Purchase - Late 80's Prepper

Post by Hardtack » Fri Apr 23, 2021 1:37 am

SI Equipment might have been an early name of what is now Major Surplus and Survival which has for been in buisness in the Carson/ Gardena area for years. They do mail order and operated out of a variety of open to the public warehouses in the area. The have sold MRE components by the case or in singles for many years.

When I googled "SI Equipment Ltd. surplus" Major Surplus and Survival come up so its probably them.

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blue87fj60
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Re: Estate Sale Purchase - Late 80's Prepper

Post by blue87fj60 » Fri Apr 23, 2021 6:29 am

Hardtack wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 1:37 am
SI Equipment might have been an early name of what is now Major Surplus and Survival which has for been in buisness in the Carson/ Gardena area for years. They do mail order and operated out of a variety of open to the public warehouses in the area. The have sold MRE components by the case or in singles for many years.

When I googled "SI Equipment Ltd. surplus" Major Surplus and Survival come up so its probably them.
And just think the original purchaser probably filled out an order form or wrote a letter from a magazine ad. Then sent a money order. Lol
Remember those days?

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