MaxHifi asked....Here's the top of the 1945 EverReady. The metal cap on top of the positive carbon has EverReady stamped into the metal around the periphery. The top seal around that is some kind of hard black composition. The bottom of the cell is the actual zinc cylinder and is just a dull gray color. The DVM says it still has about 0.1 volt of potential.
My uncle who was in radio in the late twenties and thirties as a kid said he would round up old No. 6 "dead" dry cells, punch holes in the top, and submerge them in a bucket of water overnight. They would come back enough to be useful for a while strung together to light up some 01A's. I have some of his old tubes and equipment.
