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No. 5 or 23 spoon/lever

MissingSomething

MissingSomething

Well-Known Member
I recently picked up this high sided spoon/lever. It was advertised to fit a No. 5 or 23 grenade. I found a couple of things wrong. I appears that the pivot pin is larger than normal and it doesn't fit in the No.5 or 23 grenades that I have. It also doesn't look like the holes for the pull pin are in the proper position either.

Any ideas?
 

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Hi bud,
it looks like its the channeled lever for No 5 ok but is it made of iron or steel? Isnt aluminium is it? As for the pin holes, well, they were individually fitted to grens and the hole drilled where needed so i dont have a problem with that. Wonder if its a repro?

It does look in pretty good condition and it should fit the lugs of any Mills gren. Maybe it would be worth giving it a quick once over with a file so your money is not wasted.

Andy
 
Its steel with a coat of lacquer.... It was touted as original....

I may have to do the file bit..... I wanted it to go on my #23 to replace the repro spoon I have in it now.
 
Hi bud,

not too many 23s would have had such a lever, its better on a No5, the earlier the better.

Andy
 
gothica7 said:
Hi bud,

not too many 23s would have had such a lever, its better on a No5, the earlier the better.

Andy
Click to expand...

I have 2 No 23 MK1s, both with this type of lever. I have added a pic. One is really pitted and rotten, the other is in quite good nick and looks identical to yours, however, it does fit the grenade perfectly and this is how I got it. I do have No5 levers that will only fit on certain No5 grenade bodys at the lugs. Must have been slight differences in dimensions from different casters?
The mystery continues!
 

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This type of lever was drilled individually for each grenade so they often will not easilly fit another grenade. Some people enlarge the holes to allow fitting, and this is obvious when you find one.

The rarest version of this lever has the registered design number (646009) stamped into the lever.

John
 
Millsman said:
This type of lever was drilled individually for each grenade so they often will not easilly fit another grenade. Some people enlarge the holes to allow fitting, and this is obvious when you find one.

The rarest version of this lever has the registered design number (646009) stamped into the lever.

John
Click to expand...
John

I was quite pleased to read this as I have just acquired a No. 5 Mk I with the lever you've just described. How rare is it?

The grenade itself is stamped C over A. The brass baseplug is by MM Co. 11/16. Interestingly, the grenade body has been painted black, which is a new one on me but is clearly original. There are traces of the pink and red rings over it.

Cheers,

W.
 
Well William, I have only seen a few with the pattern number and have only owned one. On the basis that I have owned a couple of hundred Mills over the last 10 years. have 50+ in my collection and about 30 spare levers in various states, I'd say they must be about 1 in 1000 or rarer. However this has no basis in statistical truth so they could be even rarer.

I don't think your baseplug goes with the lever as even Mills had abandoned the slabsided lever by 11/16. Yes some grenades were painted black but most were just shellacked. I have one WW1 grenade in original black.

John
 
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Regarding the slabsided lever and the No 23, yes they were made in a few cases, but most of these levers were well gone by the time the 23 appeared in numbers in August / September 1916, and the grenades may have been 'old stock' where the base plug was changed for a 23 plug. The makers had realised that they took more time to make and there were operational problems with grenades being gripped too hard and soldiers being unable to pull the pin with this type of lever. Logic dictated that both problems were solved with the pin going over the lever.

John
 
Lever

John
Many thanks for that. You might well be right about the baseplug as this is the second grenade I have obtained from the same source, both remarkably with brass baseplugs dated 11/16, though by different makers. So an earlier baseplug appears to be called for for one, perhaps both grenades, as there are certain similarities about them, implying that if one has been replaced, both probably have. Otherwise all elements of both grenades have similar patination and look to have been together for quite a long time. The other No. 5 is shellacked and with a central rib lever. (I posted a picture of this one in my thread on Some WW1 Grenades.) Add: the other No. 5 is by CAV.
Regards,
W.
 
The CAV grenade sounds ok. The date and the type of lever fit well. In January 1917 the No5 designation disappeared and all grenades of the No5 body type became 23's.

The grenade with the slabsided or slotted lever should really have a plug dated August 1915 through to January 1916 to be right. Any date earlier than 8/15 and the plug is worth more than the grenade!

John
 
Vandervell did mark their No 5 bodies, unusual, as most didnt but they produced vast numbers of Mills grens.
The slab sided or channelled lever was very soon superseded by the flat and then ribbed lever and the 23 had the slotted striker[a few No 5s may have had this] but i cant see any 23s with the early lever. I suspect that the base plug has been changed on such grens. Such levers may fit 23 grens if enough are introduced to the body but i dont think you can tell from the body of the gren if its a 23/1 or 2 or a No 5.

I agree with you John, a base plug dated 7/15 would be worth a lot but a 5/15 or a 6/15 would be worth, well, so rare that i dont think a figure springs to mind, certainly a lot, However, there isnt a lot about, except for the fake Barbour plug on ebay right now. Bet there will be more of these, even 3/15 or earlier.

Andy
 
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So CAV is Vandervells. That's interesting to me as I used to do holiday work for them in the 1970s - they were (and for all I know still are) based in Maidenhead, and were makers and distributors of automotive parts. It would be nice to find a Vandervells baseplug for this grenade. The one currently on it is by VP Ld. As said before, I have some doubts as to whether it belongs (it has slight damage of a similar nature to the other No. 5 plug), but the full name of Vandervells when I worked there was Vandervell Products Ltd, which abbreviates rather conveniently to VP! Could this baseplug be one of theirs?
 
Following on from my last post, a quick Net search shows that the name Vandervell Products appeared in 1933 so VP presumably isn't that. And a search on BOCN also shows at least one baseplug marked CAV. Two questions: how hard is finding one likely to be, and who are VP Ld?
Thanks,
W.
 
Check out this previous thread, particularly the informative comments from Bonnex re CAV:

http://www.bocn.co.uk/vbforum/new-addtion-no5-t58021.html?t=58021

VP, or VPL, is Vickery's Patents Ltd of Devonshire Grove, Old Kent Road, London.

Finding a CAV baseplug shouldn't be too difficult; they tend to be one of the more common plugs that turn up.

As for the channel levers with the registered design number stamped, they are not so uncommon. Unfortunately most relic levers are too corroded to have preserved the stamping.

Evidence from field finds suggests this early type of lever soldiered on well into 1916, and I have seen at least one example of a 23MkI (introduced June-July 1916) with this lever type.



Tom.
 
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Williams_castle said:
Following on from my last post, a quick Net search shows that the name Vandervell Products appeared in 1933 so VP presumably isn't that. And a search on BOCN also shows at least one baseplug marked CAV. Two questions: how hard is finding one likely to be, and who are VP Ld?
Thanks,
W.
Click to expand...
Hi bud,

pm me if you want a CAV plug.

Andy
 
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