careful on WWII Japanese ceramic grenades

[dano1917]

Notice on the market being flooded with different color Japanese WWII ceramic grenades. Well,they are being made today wholesale in Mexico and that's a fact/ Not to say what most for sale are ok, but a friend of mine just returned from Mexico and they can be had for 7.00 US in tourist dumps. Man, everybody and their brother is selling them, and my only word is be careful before shelling out the 50 - 60.00 an original is worth. Just exercise caution, as even the originals are little more than cheap junk...Dano

 

[HAZORD]

Thanks for the heads-up Dano!

 

[paul the grenade]

Thats interesting !!
can anyone supply a picture of the new ones??
Paul.

 

[JCB99]

Fake Japanese ceramic grenades?!

I'm new to this website, great resource for the collector. I collect japanese ordnance and this is the first time I've heard about ceramic grenade reproductions. It doesn't surprise me. I hope we can post some pictures of these repro grenades, I'm hoping they are different from the originals. What's next? repro ceramic mines?

At this time they are reproducing (in small numbers) japanese stick grenades, both the T98 and T98b styles, Spigot model 2 finned rifle grenades, The type 2 40mm rifle grenades,
Both the type 91 and late model Japanese spigot grenade launchers. The repros are good quality but not good enough (at this moment) to fool collectors. Jim


Jim B
Pittsburgh, PA
USA
"Home of the G-20 summit"

JapaneseOrdnance(at)yahoo.com

Collector Seeks: Inert Japanese Ordnance material: Especially Unusual grenades, Mines, and aerial bombs. Improvised stuff is a favorite. Also interested in LARGE japanese artillery shellcases, 120mm and up!

 

[ordnance]

I'm hoping they are different from the originals. What's next? repro ceramic mines?

Jim, I think the U.S. Army already took the lead in producing the first of the reproduction ceramic mines. And during WWII! They didn't even wait for the collectors to create a demand first.

I've never had the chance to compare one of the flower pot mines from the mine training kits to a real one but I'll bet they are pretty close.

Rick

 

[25thapril]

US made mine training set

I have a mine training set made by the US to train their troops to help with identification and how to disarm /render safe these items when discovered in the feild and they are a very accurate copies. I have posted pic's of my set in the Mine section a few months ago my set dosn't have a ceramic ball type in it as these were not in use until the very end of hostilities
Regards 25thapril

 

[JCB99]

Ceramic mines

Yes, I stand corrected, the ceramic US trainers are in a "Sense" fakes. I guess I ment modern newly made ceramic fakes. This is one way to tell the difference between original and Trainer ceramic mines with once glance: I own six original japanese ceramic mines and I've seen at least 4 others in friends collections. *All* of them have embossed maker markings on the side with varying lot numbers. The mark is hexagonal with a japanese character inside about 10mm in diameter. The lot numbers I've seen are either two or three digits. I have what seems to be an early production ceramic mine (unfortunately broken and repaired) with the maker mark and lot number to the bottom surface. My ceramic trainer mine has *No* markings whatsoever. To my knowledge, I've never seen a US made trainer with embossed markings. If anybody has seen a trainer with embossed markings, I'm open to correction.

Hope to see some pictures of these fake ceramic grenades. I've done a Google search for "Japanese Ceramic grenade" and "Mexico" and turned up nothing.

Let's keep an eye on this situation!

Jim B
Pittsburgh PA, USA

Jap_ordnance_collector(at)yahoo(dot)com
JapaneseOrdnance(at)yahoo(dot)com