No. 5 Mills - any comments?

[Derek]

I recently acquired this No 5 Mills, at least that what it appears to be judging by the early type of lever but it came with what looks like a very corroded No 23 base plug. The grenade had been painted with a very thick layer of green over another layer of gold! I have carefully stripped the paint away to the bare metal but there are still traces of an original black finish in places. There is no sign of any pitting or corrosion to the body which could mean that the base plug did not belong to this grenade?
No visible markings on the grenade or other parts and the base plug is too corroded to see anything but an A, 1 and 9. The centre tub is alloy with a raised ring and there was a detonator anvil included too, the only part missing is the brass filler screw. I welcome any comments.
Cheers, Derek

 

[siegfreid]

Derek. What you have is a very fine example of a No5 but with the wrong late WW1 steel No36 base plug . I have correct plugs if you need one . Mike

 

[Darrol]

hi.nice no 5 mk 1.theres a few original brass filling plugs on ebay at the moment. . might be helpful.
Darrol

 

[pointblank0]

Nice no5. Early type lever and unslotted striker by the looks of it.

 

[Edwardc]

are the castings usually that roughly finished where the 2 halves are joined together? neither of my number 5's or the others i have seen are that rough. the base edges look a bit roughly finished aswell.

sorry im just naturally cynical

 

[siegfreid]

They made 75 million Mills grenades in WW1 . The quality of the casting & even the overall shape from a squat egg format to elongated egg format differs immensely . Check out the ones on Millsbombers site & the variations are incredible !

 

[pointblank0]

are the castings usually that roughly finished where the 2 halves are joined together? neither of my number 5's or the others i have seen are that rough. the base edges look a bit roughly finished aswell.

sorry im just naturally cynical

I have seen many with rough grinding and also plenty that are very well ground. Suppose it depended on the quantities required at the time

 

[Edwardc]

oh ok cool, its just me being cynical then! Maybe im over paranoid about buying a fake!

 

[siegfreid]

No , you are right to be cautious . There were quite a lot a fake ones from Asia some years ago . These ones generally had badly aligned frag. segments & the base plug threads were only half finished . Dave Sampson has some pictures of one on his site . Hope this helps .