Some of the collection.
For the curious, all of these grenades are harmless, except perhaps if you drop one on your foot.
I "started" collecting grenades when I was in my pre-teens, thanks to my grandfather and another older gentleman from my district. My grandfather presented me with a souvenir of his service in WWII, a No. 36 Mills Bomb, and my discussion of the Mills Bomb with a friend, in the presence of another veteran, prompted the gift of a WWII Italian grenade commonly refered to as a "Red Devil". After that, I occasioned to aquire the usual selection of practice-grenades (the kind you see in army-surplus stores), and a few other oddments. Recently, I revived the interest, mostly because grenades, while making some folks a little nervous, take up a lot less space than a lot of other military collectables (like Jeeps, for instance). If you have any interest in this field of collecting, I highly reccomend "The Grenade Recognition Manual" Volumes 1 & 2 , by Daryll Lynn. Well illustrated and highly informative, they're excellent resources for the beginning or advanced collector.
My current main field
of interest is Chemical and "Less-Lethal" grenades, just to be different
from the main-stream, which tends to focus either on certain nations, or
on "offensive" devices such as fragmentation and concussion grenades. Chemical
grenades have been around almost as long as thier explosive counterparts,
and in some ways have become even more numerous over time, including smoke,
gas, incendiary, and illumination devices. The more recent addition of "Less-Lethal"
devices, resluting from increased demands placed upon policing agencies,
has added an almost bewildering assorment of tear-gas devices, stun-grenades,
anti-riot devices and distraction devices (the so-called "Flash-Bangs").
Driven more by entrepreneurial spirit, innovation, safety requirements, and
the variable demands of police forces, than the relatively strict and narrow
requirements of military usage and procurement, I believe this area of collecting,
more than any other in this field, is going to prove increasingly complex
and fascinating.
Presently, my collection includes only a couple
dozen examples of chemical grenades, consisting mostly of a relatively complete
selection of U.S. military-issue M-18 smoke grenades, a scattering of smoke
grenades from other countries, some U.S. military-issue white-phosphorous
grenades I am in the process of restoring from empty cans bought on-line, and a slowly increasing number of police-issue tear-gas and smoke devices
.
I have, however,
amassed a huge collection of data on grenades of all sorts, which
I am collating and sorting with the somewhat optimistic thought of someday
publishing a treatise or perhaps even a book.
To that end, I'm always looking for and interested
in examples and information on grenades of any kind; samples, pamplets,
training manuals, catalogs, actual devices, and accessories. If you have
something you'd like to share, trade, or sell, please feel free to contact
me, with "Grenades" as the subject heading, and I'll get back to you as soon
as I possibly can. For those of you interested in trading, you can look here for the items I currently have to trade.