I’ve been told by a very knowledgeable Collins expert and retired Army officer very acquainted with military practices that these ID tags were removed and turned in for auditing purposes whenever a piece of equipment was destroyed / “surplussed”.  If an on-facility audit was “short” of any equipment and if the officers in line of authority couldn’t come up with record of the serial tag having been surrendered, they would have been responsible for the missing pieces. 

Granted, some pieces may have slipped out and the owners may have wanted to remove serial number tags, but it seems the tags were mostly removed for auditing purposes.  Entities managing surplussed equipment in large quantities may not have cared.  (i.e. the “blue stripe” R-390/A radios piled up by the hundreds).

73,

Bill
KJ5BNE
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
Bill Blodgett
Arlington, Texas


On Nov 28, 2023, at 1:02 PM, Ray Fantini <[email protected]> wrote:

Speculation that a lot of Hams back in the day wanted to make it look less military, that explains some of the bad paint jobs and other Hacks people did. Would propose at least ten to one hundred times more stuff was released thru regular government surplus channels then thru MARS Between the massive amounts that was produced in WW2 and after was disposed of before the government became obsessed with destroying everything that can remotely be considered to be used against it lots of surplus was around. 
 
Ray F/KA3EKH
 
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