75mm Artillery Shell

[fishnlure]

Thought I would share this story. I collect Antique fishing tackle as well as Inert ordnance.  While I was visiting another Tackle collector when in Ohio for work, I was showing him some pictures of my tackle collection and there were a few artillery shells in one of my pictures. He saw them and said he had an inert shell on a shelf in his barn and wanted to know if I wanted it. His son had worked at an orchard owned by a WW2 Vet and when the man decided to close the business he gave much of the stuff at the orchard to his employees. My friends son brought this shell home and it had been sitting in the barn for 10 years. The Case and projectile were separate and sitting on the shelf. It was 10 PM and there were no lights in the barn, so we just had a flashlight, so I couldn't examine it very well. I told him I would love to have it for my collection and offered to pay him for it but he refused any money and gave it to me.  I wrapped it in a jacket and put it in a 5 gallon bucket strapped in the back of my work van. I had to leave to come back to Virginia at 0500, but before I left, I took a better look at the projectile and was worried It was not Inert. the impact fuse did not look like it had ever been taken off the projectile. When I got back to Virginia I put it in a safe place and eventually found a guy that checked it out and told me it definitely still live. He gave me a contact at Marine EOD in Quantico and I called them and they asked me to send them some photos. I didn't hear anything back from them that day. The next day, I was working a few hours away from the house and they called me and said that they were on the way to get the shell. I had to rush home to meet them and got there right after they arrived. While talking to them I found they were excited to see this shell because they did not have one in their "Library" They packed the shell in the back of their Pickup truck and asked me if I wanted the shell back if they were able to disarm it. I said I would, but I felt it Belonged in their collection. I did ask them to send me a picture of it in their Library after they disarmed it. They called a few days later and said they were able to disarm it and did not have to destroy it and sent me a picture of it in their Library. It is top center in the picture.