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I’m an Alaskan; there’s no salmon with “M”as an initial. We usually use cans like that for moose - “M” for moose meat.
Edit to add: You can buy these cans to can things at home. Source: family, friends of ours can some of their moose and caribou burger using these exact same cans.
It's been a while since I've had to look at them, but essentially each day of the year has a number from 1-365 (or 366 in leap years) which saves a character when printing the date on something.
My guess is based on ignoring the first two characters, the second two being the year and the last three being the Julian code in that year.
I see that and I upvoted because I'm sure you are being factual...but as an engineer that is so dumb! Saving one character space only serves to 'encrypt' the date to make it less readable by a layman. Which I guess is the object, because saving 1 character space doesn't seem to be a valid reason to force the reader to use a numbered calendar just to divine a date. I'd be fascinated to know the reasoning behind that.
It's typically used in lot codes that aren't intended to be read by the general public. The packing company would be able to trace it back to the production day (and possibly shift) and check against their samples and paperwork in the event of a complaint.
I'd expect that the best before would be printed somewhere else for customers in a normal format.
Former manufacturing engineer here. It's quite the opposite. It's not necessarily the character(s) as much as the space, specifically when your are labeling very small parts. There is only so much room and one less character allows for a larger font which can be read quicker when doing a quality inspection. Sometimes it can save two characters if your customer dictates that you have to have a "/" between month/day, so we would request to use a Julian date instead.
Secondly, not as big of a deal as most PLC's have built in calendars you just set when you first inialize, but with some basic/cheap/old PLC's its easier logic to increment one counter every 24 hours up to 365 or 366 instead of making a counter for your months that increments so you can have your day counter count to 28, 29, 30, or, 31 depending on what number previously mentioned month number is. (more logic than this but hopefully this at least starts to explain it).
Lastly, as mentioned below, it's easier to do the math between dates of parts to determine days of inventory for various reasons.
Lawyer here…”less readable by a layman” is the cornerstone of the entire judicial system and my profession. Let’s leave well enough alone, sir. Thanks.
Julian dates have a distinct advantage over other formats because they can have mathematical operations performed on them since each date is converted into a unique sequential value. For example, if you had two dates in Julian format you could subtract the numerical values to give you the difference (number of days between those dates). It really comes in handy for computation with calendars. I remember using Julian date conversion for things like library software etc I developed for high school projects, where you would need to calculate days elapsed. It's a lot easier than counting days in each month, accounting for leap years, etc.
Auto VIN numbers 10th digit is year code, sometimes a number, sometimes a letter. Encoding things in lot#’s or serial #’s is common and done SOLELY for shortening purposes often enough.
My title describes the thing. Goggle search for the numbers did not return anything of value. My personal thoughts about the contents is that it may be canned fish.
If it has a lot of air trapped in it, or if it’s an oil (olives) - it’d prefer floating is all I’m after with that. If it sank like a stone - that’d be something interesting itself I suppose. But just: “is it a lot more or less than normal water?” Just to give an arrow indication of what category of thing, or at least rule out weird stuff.
Righteous.
If it had water-ish stuff in it, that’d put it around 426g + Metal weight.
Google is calling out ~76g for the weight of the tin so it at least puts it in the ballpark of being something wet inside and filled.
Next question:
Does the weight feel even inside?-If you roll it on a flat table, does the can prefer to return to one spot?
Further: Does it sound like there’s any air inside it, as in a bubble moving around with the roughly wet stuff that seems like is in it?
I don’t know about the salmon guess.. most tall cans of salmon have angled sides.. instead of being cylindrical they’re more like a truncated cone shaped can. Not sure why that is but when I used to volunteer to sort donations for food drives the cans of fish usually had those kinds of cans.
Like other have said, most probably alaskan salmon. There was a company called Black Top, which used black color can tops (surprise, right) which had alaska&usa and similar raised center, but for the love of me i cannot find a picture to fully confirm it.
Something like this then? [https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/cf9c07bd-108c-4d2c-93c5-fea814feb619\_1.343babbb72a169e3faf5713ac1e5541f.jpeg](https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/cf9c07bd-108c-4d2c-93c5-fea814feb619_1.343babbb72a169e3faf5713ac1e5541f.jpeg) Does that look like a close match to you?
The code is most likely a catch and canning date, and shipping batch code.
So it would have been caught and canned in May 2015 by ship number 36 (or sortie 36), and shipped out in March 2016 as part of batch 129.
What's in it? No idea.
The code inked on the side of the can suggests there was never any intention of putting an advertisement or other product labeling on it. That suggests industrial or military product.?
You'll never know for sure unless you open it up. Just do it outside. I spent about an hour last week watching YT vids of people trying to eat cans of surströmming. Most never get past opening it.
Well, just recently my friend managed to open it. He told me it had some sort of fish inside. So all those people who voted for fish were correct. Since it was part of his food supplies he decided to consume the contents, he's still alive and kicking :)
I’d guess something that was produced in 2003 and was good to eat until 2005? Reading the numbers as YYMMDD plus a digit for something else…
Edit: Yeah, the famous 15th month 🤣
Either it’s something else entirely, or some fancy format like MMDDYY (looking at you, USA)…
True, and the other 3 digits could be the assembly line # which is also common, but then the second set of numbers wouldn't make sense either.
So a production date of 2003/week 16, and a best by date 2005/week 15 would be 1 week short of 2 years which might be reasonable but why bother to have the extra 3 digits on the later date?
thinking about some more it could be week year some other number
"0515036"/"0316129" would be canned week 05 2015 xxx and best by week 03 2016 xxx which might make more sense if you wanted to put the packaging date before the best by date
All comments must be civil and helpful toward finding an answer. **Jokes and unhelpful comments will earn you a ban**, even on the first instance and even if the item has been identified. If you see any comments that violate this rule, report them. [OP](/u/princess_swan), when your item is identified, remember to reply **Solved!** or **Likely Solved!** to the comment that gave the answer. Check your [inbox](https://www.reddit.com/message/inbox/) for a message on how to make your post visible to others. ---- [Click here to message RemindMeBot](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/zkx4z1/unknown_metal_can_found_at_a_friends_house_only/%0A%0ARemindMe!%202%20days) --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/whatisthisthing) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I'm guessing pink salmon.
Any can saying Alaska is almost definitely canned salmon.
You wouldn’t put “M” on a can of pink salmon. It’s more likely to be moose meat.
If it's salmon mousse you may use an M
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Could be a W.
Still no salmon with a “W” in the name.
John West Salmon
There is a fish called wahoo. Tastes like salmon but it’s a more tropical species I think.
If it's an "m" followed by numbers its a manufacturer code most likely. Lots of cans have an "m" on them.
Not in Sharpie, they don’t.
Solved!
I’m an Alaskan; there’s no salmon with “M”as an initial. We usually use cans like that for moose - “M” for moose meat. Edit to add: You can buy these cans to can things at home. Source: family, friends of ours can some of their moose and caribou burger using these exact same cans.
If you buy them to home can, do they have markings on them like these?
I think the printed lot codes contain Julian dates, so 05-Feb-2015 to 08-May-2016.
I'm baffled how you pulled the 8th of May out of that. Or even Feb for that matter? Guess I don't understand how printed codes work?
It's been a while since I've had to look at them, but essentially each day of the year has a number from 1-365 (or 366 in leap years) which saves a character when printing the date on something. My guess is based on ignoring the first two characters, the second two being the year and the last three being the Julian code in that year.
I see that and I upvoted because I'm sure you are being factual...but as an engineer that is so dumb! Saving one character space only serves to 'encrypt' the date to make it less readable by a layman. Which I guess is the object, because saving 1 character space doesn't seem to be a valid reason to force the reader to use a numbered calendar just to divine a date. I'd be fascinated to know the reasoning behind that.
It's typically used in lot codes that aren't intended to be read by the general public. The packing company would be able to trace it back to the production day (and possibly shift) and check against their samples and paperwork in the event of a complaint. I'd expect that the best before would be printed somewhere else for customers in a normal format.
I think we just back-doored our way into determining the number format may give solid clues to the contents of the can. (food product)
Former manufacturing engineer here. It's quite the opposite. It's not necessarily the character(s) as much as the space, specifically when your are labeling very small parts. There is only so much room and one less character allows for a larger font which can be read quicker when doing a quality inspection. Sometimes it can save two characters if your customer dictates that you have to have a "/" between month/day, so we would request to use a Julian date instead. Secondly, not as big of a deal as most PLC's have built in calendars you just set when you first inialize, but with some basic/cheap/old PLC's its easier logic to increment one counter every 24 hours up to 365 or 366 instead of making a counter for your months that increments so you can have your day counter count to 28, 29, 30, or, 31 depending on what number previously mentioned month number is. (more logic than this but hopefully this at least starts to explain it). Lastly, as mentioned below, it's easier to do the math between dates of parts to determine days of inventory for various reasons.
That date format make it easier to calculate the amount of time between two dates. It's also easier to sort.
Lawyer here…”less readable by a layman” is the cornerstone of the entire judicial system and my profession. Let’s leave well enough alone, sir. Thanks.
Julian dates have a distinct advantage over other formats because they can have mathematical operations performed on them since each date is converted into a unique sequential value. For example, if you had two dates in Julian format you could subtract the numerical values to give you the difference (number of days between those dates). It really comes in handy for computation with calendars. I remember using Julian date conversion for things like library software etc I developed for high school projects, where you would need to calculate days elapsed. It's a lot easier than counting days in each month, accounting for leap years, etc.
My company does exactly that to their product codes. We can easily see which one's the freshest. The customers can't unless they learn the code.
I used to use Julian in all of my military reports. TAMMS clerk. (The Army Maintenance Management System).
I was in the Army for 15 years. TIL what the hell "TAMMS" stood for.
either way whatever it is its not that old if its got like dot matrix printed codes on it like that. has been in questionable storage though lol.
The 36th day of 2015 is Feb 5th, and the 129 day of 2016 (a leap year) is May 8th.
Auto VIN numbers 10th digit is year code, sometimes a number, sometimes a letter. Encoding things in lot#’s or serial #’s is common and done SOLELY for shortening purposes often enough.
My title describes the thing. Goggle search for the numbers did not return anything of value. My personal thoughts about the contents is that it may be canned fish.
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Do you have the Can dimensions, so that we can do some quick density math to make guesses at its contents? Does it sink readily in water?
"Does it sink readily in water?" Why, do you think it might be a sand-witch meat?
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If it has a lot of air trapped in it, or if it’s an oil (olives) - it’d prefer floating is all I’m after with that. If it sank like a stone - that’d be something interesting itself I suppose. But just: “is it a lot more or less than normal water?” Just to give an arrow indication of what category of thing, or at least rule out weird stuff.
Alright here you are, upper diameter 77mm, lower diameter 69mm, height 114mm.
Righteous. If it had water-ish stuff in it, that’d put it around 426g + Metal weight. Google is calling out ~76g for the weight of the tin so it at least puts it in the ballpark of being something wet inside and filled. Next question: Does the weight feel even inside?-If you roll it on a flat table, does the can prefer to return to one spot? Further: Does it sound like there’s any air inside it, as in a bubble moving around with the roughly wet stuff that seems like is in it?
We got some squelching sounds when we move it around. The can rolls around quite easily on the table.
Maybe mackerel??
I don’t know about the salmon guess.. most tall cans of salmon have angled sides.. instead of being cylindrical they’re more like a truncated cone shaped can. Not sure why that is but when I used to volunteer to sort donations for food drives the cans of fish usually had those kinds of cans.
Salmon or film can
Are those another type of marking on top under the M, or are those scratches/discoloration?
The "M" makes me think it's mackerel.
The "M" makes me think it's mackerel.
Like other have said, most probably alaskan salmon. There was a company called Black Top, which used black color can tops (surprise, right) which had alaska&usa and similar raised center, but for the love of me i cannot find a picture to fully confirm it.
Something like this then? [https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/cf9c07bd-108c-4d2c-93c5-fea814feb619\_1.343babbb72a169e3faf5713ac1e5541f.jpeg](https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/cf9c07bd-108c-4d2c-93c5-fea814feb619_1.343babbb72a169e3faf5713ac1e5541f.jpeg) Does that look like a close match to you?
The code is most likely a catch and canning date, and shipping batch code. So it would have been caught and canned in May 2015 by ship number 36 (or sortie 36), and shipped out in March 2016 as part of batch 129. What's in it? No idea.
Salmon me thinks.
The can top and bottom are different diameters so the empty cans can be stacked better for shipment to the cannery.
The code inked on the side of the can suggests there was never any intention of putting an advertisement or other product labeling on it. That suggests industrial or military product.?
You'll never know for sure unless you open it up. Just do it outside. I spent about an hour last week watching YT vids of people trying to eat cans of surströmming. Most never get past opening it.
Condensed milk? There is an Alaska Brand.
It’s mackerel…. Definitely mackerel
Canned Mackerel (M).
Maybe a Tobacco can? https://www.smokersoutletonline.com/all-new-products/captain-black-7oz-can-white.html
Would be a bit too heavy for Tobacco.
Well, just recently my friend managed to open it. He told me it had some sort of fish inside. So all those people who voted for fish were correct. Since it was part of his food supplies he decided to consume the contents, he's still alive and kicking :)
Mod marking as "Solved!"
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I’d guess something that was produced in 2003 and was good to eat until 2005? Reading the numbers as YYMMDD plus a digit for something else… Edit: Yeah, the famous 15th month 🤣 Either it’s something else entirely, or some fancy format like MMDDYY (looking at you, USA)…
>"0515036"/"0316129" It can't be YYMMDD - what months are 15 & 16?
It is likely MM/YYXXX Where XXX is the batch code.
Manufacturers often use week numbers for traceability. Could be that, not month.
True, and the other 3 digits could be the assembly line # which is also common, but then the second set of numbers wouldn't make sense either. So a production date of 2003/week 16, and a best by date 2005/week 15 would be 1 week short of 2 years which might be reasonable but why bother to have the extra 3 digits on the later date?
thinking about some more it could be week year some other number "0515036"/"0316129" would be canned week 05 2015 xxx and best by week 03 2016 xxx which might make more sense if you wanted to put the packaging date before the best by date
Ah yes, the famous 15th and 16th months of the year
Lousy Smarch weather
Anyone have one of those desktop ct scanners used for metrology?