What's polybdenum?

Question

In *The Dharma Bums,* Ray buys "a polybdenum bottle, with screw top" at the Berkeley Ski Shop (chapter 14), saying he plans to use it "to carry honey up to the moutains" but that he mostly "used it as a canteen for wine... [and] whisky." It's not a typo because on his way back West when he stops in El Paso he says he "put fresh bus-station water in my polybdenum bottle" (chapter 22). Most of the top Google results for "polybdenum" are quotes from Kerouac, or probably derivatives from that; when I search for "polybdenum bottle" Google tries to auto-correct me to "molybdenum." What would a reader in the late '50s understand "polybdenum" to mean?

Answer 1

Although the word is used twice, it may still be a typo as a result of editing error.

It may also be a writing error resulting from Kerouac's misreading of the term. Or, going through various metallurgy results it is most likely a stainless steel or aluminum alloy. That still leaves the question unanswered though doesn't it :-) ?

So to take it a step further, did the shopkeeper tell Ray, "Here's a nice polybdenum bottle?" Or did Ray decide for himself that "Hey man that's one beautiful popybdenum bottle."

Take your pick.