Japanese Ceramic Grenade

[Aragorn243]

One of my meandering ebay searches turned these up two weeks ago and it arrived today. Fellow in Japan evidently came up with a small stockpile of them and listed them on ebay for $20 with $15 shipping which is way below what everyone else is trying to get for them.

Ceramic grenade produced late war with the intention of issuing them to the general populace for defense against invasion. Thinking about it, I wondered what damage a ceramic grenade would cause. Fragments of porcelain in legs? My suspicion was that the porcelain would just disintegrate and apparently, that's what happened. These were shock grenades similar to a flash/bang and would more likely disorient or disable rather than kill or seriously wound. I think it's pretty neat. They were to be filled with powder and a fuse would be pushed/crushed into the top. No going back when fuse installed I guess.

Customs paperwork states it is pottery which is correct and probably easier to export/import than saying grenade.

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