Milcor Pick-Up Cart, Green & Orange Two-Wheel Steel Garden Cart, c. 1940s–50s

A two-wheel steel garden hauler by Milcor, built with a deep V-profile hopper that funnels loads toward the center for balanced carrying. The body retains its original green paint with the orange "MILCOR Pick-up Cart" script-and-block logo stenciled along the side — clean enough that you can still read the cursive script from across a room. Riveted seams at the upper rim, a long swept orange tubular handle-and-frame that doubles as a kickstand at rest, and twin solid-tire wheels with orange pressed-steel hubcaps give the thing a two-tone color confidence that modern garden tools never bothered to attempt. The mark "MFG U.S. PAT. OFF." appears beneath the logo.

Milcor was the pressed-steel and sheet-metal division of Milwaukee Corrugating Company, a mid-century American manufacturer of galvanized goods that outfitted suburban garages from the 1930s through the 1950s. This barrow-style cart was marketed for yard and garden work — leaves, clippings, mulch, light debris — its tapered V-form and single-axle geometry letting one person tip-and-dump without lifting. Decades on, that orange-and-green livery lands somewhere between a Farmall tractor and a Halloween decoration, and the graphics still carry. The patina is honest working wear, not decay — the structure is sound, the wheels roll, and the whole thing looks exactly like what it is: a well-used American garden tool that somebody kept around long enough to become a find.

CONDITION

Fair. Surface rust and oxidation throughout — heavy on the interior hopper floor, with orange rust bloom along the exterior seams and edges and paint scuffed and thinned across the body. Frame is structurally sound, wheels roll freely, and the logo graphics remain legible on both sides.

DIMENSIONS / SPECIFICATIONS

• Overall: 23½" × 20" × 46"
• Material: Steel
• Maker: Milcor / Milwaukee Corrugating Company (marked)
• Era: c. 1940s–1950s
• Campbell's Soup Can (4" H) Shown for Scale — Not Included