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Photos - Your Favorite Collectables


BryanJ
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Persian Gulf Command

Fantastic! Could we see spme better photos of your AT Rifle Grenades and the Manuals you have for these items.

 

John

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As requested, a picture of my current US Anti-Tank Rifle Grenades l to r:

 

Early Yellow M9A1 AT Grenade circa early 1943

Later Green M9A1 AT Grenade circa 1943-1945

M9A2 AT Grenade circa 1951

T-41/M28 HEAT Grenade circa 1951

M31 HEAT Grenade circa 1955

 

Still looking for an M9 AT Grenade to finish out the collection. Any leads would be greatly appreciated!

 

 

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Since we're on the topic of rifle grenades, here's a little story...

I grew up not far from a military training area. My dad grew up near this area and spent his life hunting, fishing and just having fun out there. We were driving around once day, June 22, 1984 to be exact (I was 12 years old), and he told me a story about when he was in this same area years ago that there was a range fire and all the National Guard training there left to fight the fire. He drove up to this empty squad live-fire range and there were these steel tubes stacked like cord-wood. He grabbed a couple from the stack, drove down the road and hid them under a small pine tree. We were driving by those same pine trees at that moment. He stopped the truck, exited and took out the metal detector. At the second or third tree (now quite large) he struck a reading. We found the rifle grenades he hid there 20-30 years earlier. As a young man, my father remembered taking the smoke rifle grenades and, after pulling the safety pin, would hurl them at a tree which they would strike and start to smoke. Excited to find these and demonstrate them, he opened a tube and extracted the very cool and minty rifle grenade. The grenade had the word "SMOKE" on it. He pulled the pin and threw it at a nearby large tree. Nothing happened. After a couple tries at the tree, my dad took the grenade in hand and in front of the truck, threw it down at the hard-packed dirt road. I was standing near the front of the pickup. My dad was about four feet in front of me. The grenade struck the road just a couple feet in front of him. There was an explosion and a lot of smoke. My dad had burn spots on his closes and exposed skin, and I had some on my arm. What the hell happened? We took off not knowing what we did. We drove to a nearby stream and washed the burned areas. The burns happened so fast it didn't feel like burns at all. We were lucky, the burn areas were small. Dad's clothes had burned spots all over. The truck had burn sports. I only got hit on my right arm... scars today are barely visible. After gaining our senses we realized what happened. The rifle grenade markings were "WP SMOKE." The realization of stupidity sank in. We drove back to the site and retrieved the remains of the rifle grenade. We were just absolutely amazed that none of the steel made it's way to us. We were lucky. The remaining two were buried in a different location. My dad passed away in 2011. That was the worst incident we ever had with ordnance. Note, I now have my own son. A couple years ago I did look for those two remaining rifle grenades. I never found them. I know what your thinking, didn't he freakin' learn a lesson that day? Oh, I did. If I found those tubes, I would have had the local EOD take care of them. I don't know if I were in the wrong area or what. Either way, I still worry about where they are.

 

First photo taken that day with my swiss army knife for size reference...

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And the remains of the rifle grenade we experienced....

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latewatch

 

that is one hell of a collection, have never seen a finer one with displaying rifle grenades and launches.

 

along time ago, i believe i have seen it at allentown or in springfield mass, was that you ?

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latewatch

 

that is one hell of a collection, have never seen a finer one with displaying rifle grenades and launches.

 

along time ago, i believe i have seen it at allentown or in springfield mass, was that you ?

 

I've never set up at those shows. I've set up at National Gun Day in Louisville, MVACA in Kansas City, a few times at OGCA at Roberts Center, and DTGCA in Sioux Falls, SD last year. I also set up an abbreviated display of Garand Launchers only for the GCA in Fairfax, VA in 2017. I'll also be setting up at MVACA in Kansas City again in July provided the show's not cancelled.

 

Like most collectors, I started out "needing" one representative example and then went down a rabbit hole.......

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  • 4 weeks later...

Come on ladies and gentlemen, we’re all really bored here, and I know there are a lot more folks out there with some outstanding collections, or maybe just that one special item that is truly unique that other forum members would like to see.  If nothing else, you’ll get to try up your hand posting photos with the new forum format.  Let’s see what you got (where are those paratrooper items...).

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manayunkman

Great story Subgun and an excellent example of what not to do.

My dad (15 years old) lived in Holland and at the end of WWII they used grenades to go fishing near Schiveningen.

One of his school mates brought a grenade to school and it did not end well.

The two boys involved in this caper lived by some miracle but they were both badly hurt.

 

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Here is  my Colt 1903 and OSS fighting knife  from OSS agent Mike Burke.  Used during the Marcel/Proust mission in Sept1944. The story can be read in the book,

Mission Marcel-Proust: The story of an unusual OSS undertaking.

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Burke_OSS1[1].jpg

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Ronald.  That’s pretty amazing.  There’s got to be a story about how you came up with the pair?  You are going to make me go on-line to see if I can find a copy of the book.  Please share the story.

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FTLewisBrat

One of my favorite items is this flight helmet used by the Tactical Coordinator of VP-47 in the late 80's.   Nothing super special about the helmet itself...

I picked it up (complete with carry bag) at a flea market for $5.00.  All the foam from the fitted pads and ear cups had melted, so everything was covered in a sticky goo, it was partially sitting in a trash bag when I saw it.  Spent about 20 hours meticulously cleaning it (being careful not to alter it in any way), the only replacement parts were the  foam for the ear cups.

After I got it cleaned up, I did some searching and was able to find an email address for the gentleman that owned it.  I sent an email explaining that I collect militaria and asking if he would be comfortable sharing some details about his service. 

About 40 min later I got a wonderful email from him that contained all the details of his service.  He explained that it had been cleared out in preparation for a move and that he was heartbroken over it's condition.  He was so appreciative that it had been saved from the trash and very happy it was being cared for.

It's one of the things I have the most personal connection to in my collection.

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