My grandfather worked there a half century ago and my cousin just brought this to us that he found out on the grandfather's old farm. It's aluminum, I think its not magnetic, except for the handles. Trying to figure out it's original purpose, possibly a shipping bin or tote?

O Yeah! :-)

Yep, I remember them!
Ours had a coffee grinder at the check out lane and ill never forget the smell, I still like it.

yes , one could always smell the fresh ground coffee

The fresh ground coffee smell was great. It was called "Eight O'clock Coffee" I believe :-)

But does anyone recognize the container?

Sorry, nope.

Too bad ya don't have the lid too

Didn't have those here to my knowledge.

Not sure it had a lid. So far ive only found two other pics of this item on the net and nobody else has a clue what it was for. Too me it looks a a tote

Sure do! but not the container sorry

Banana Basket :-)

They are still here-they just changed their name to Metro in 2009.

Ok, i thought it looked like the handle do-hickies lock a lid down.

Dang, I'm getting double posts for some reason!

Here ya go: https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/91171824_vintage-aluminum-aandp-grocery-store-large-basket-box

Sure do. Mom and dad would take me to the local A&P every now and then when I was a young lad in the mid 50's. That was the go to store for most pantry items. It is now some sort of thrift store with novelty and outdated grocery items.

I believe those were used to carry glass gallon milk jugs. The ones i remember had spacers in them.

Looks like you're going to have to think about resurfacing your deck soon. Love the tote. That's a treasure, be nice to have a stack of them. .

yeah its been a few years since it was last stained

Yup....had one in town. I remembah those cashiers wouldn’t even look at the keys....punch them suckahs and pull that handle ....it was a blur !

If the handles fold to the inside ? perhaps when stacked kept the next tote from crushing contents below. Made before Plastic and made solid. The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company .Tut