John, your memory is right on!
In the late '80's/early 90's I contracted small engine service for my area Sears for a few years for extra income. Replacement small engine batteries were shipped ""dry charged", with a separate plastic bag of sulfuric acid in the box. You added the acid and ideally charged the battery for a bit before putting it in the machine. Some got installed without charging, and would still crank over the unit OK after a few minutes; but proper procedure was to charge them.
Through that same period and later, I ran the equipment maintenance shop for a large government (Army) installation. With several hundred vehicles and equipment items, we kept a large quantity of all size batteries in stock for both vehicles and heavy equipment--all of them supplied through the federal supply system (contracted for by GSA and DLA, and provided to federal installations world-wide). All of those batteries, from the smallest size 6 or 12 volt to the big 8D units, were supplied dry charged. We requisitioned our acid separately; the 1265 specific gravity stuff came in 6-gallon plastic bags for the automotive and equipment batteries; same process--fill them up and charge them. We also used large quantities of higher concentration acid for our big (3000 lb.) electric forklift batteries. That came in 55-gallon plastic drums at 1300 specific gravity, and had to be diluted with distilled water down to 1280 for the forklifts. The "dry charge" process used by the government for their contracted batteries helped assure that even through a slow supply process and potentially long shelf time, the batteries were "good to go" when actually activated and installed in equipment.
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