Incendiary quarrels/arrows/crossbow bolts

[Matchlock]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

This whole topic is really interesting! and the discussion on old ordnance being inert or not reminds me that they are still finding unexploded bombs from WWII in Europe! In childhood our family lived near an old air base, and on one adventure, my brother and I found in a field, an old WWII bomb, which was apparantly a 500 lb. practice bomb...it was empty so not heavy, and we carried it home through town. You should have seen the looks out of windows!!!! My dad grumbled and eventually put the thing in the attic. When we moved years later, he apparantly 'forgot' and left it in the attic oops!

Really looking forward to more on these old incendiaries!!! Thanks!

Hi Jim,

I hope nobody has stumbled across your left back attic bomb meanwhile ... (sarcastic rolleyes, but I do not know how to add that icon).


You asked for more incendiaries, so here they are:

- incendiary quoites (Pechkraenze); there have been several of them in big auction houses over the last years, e.g. Sotheby's, London, 15 Dec 2004

- two heavy clay grenades (Tongranaten) retaining their original black powder filling and even their original wooden fuses containing a small amount of glued powder. One of the fuses is cut in half to make the powder column visible

- a small Thirty Years War iron hand grenade also retaining its original filling and wooden fuse. Note the details of the fuse!


Enjoy those extremely rare pieces!

Best, Michael

[Matchlock]

Mind that the scale is in centimeters!

Michael

[Matchlock]

I tested small quantities of powder etc. from each of my incendiary objects, as well as powder taken out of 550 year old barrels that were still loaded (!).

My experience has shown that the old black fine powder will just sizzle and sparkle a bit but will not flash up like new black powder does.

Humidity does rarely account for it as that powder had been kept under cover and away from the air for centuries. So my theory is that the respective substances (coal, sulfur and saltpeter/nitrate), all constisting only of fine powder particles, have become de-mingled over that long period of time.

As far as I know, the first experiments with thick grained powder were made no earlier than the mid 16th century.

I would like to hear your theories on that, Gentlemen; I am not a chemist.

Michael

[M ELEY]

Holy cow, Michael! You really do have some of the rarest things I've ever seen! I wasn't even aware of incendiary quoits! My favorite piece is the 30 Years War grenado with original fuse! Incredible! I've known that the later 18th century bombs had a flattened dimple on the side to keep them from rolling away in combat or in the "fighting top" of a ship, but I never realized that these earlier models had the dimple as well. Thanks so much for posting them. I'll leave your chemistry question alone (not my area).

[Matchlock]

This is the description from Sotheby's sales catalog of 15 Dec 2004:

[Matchlock]

Don't they remind one a bit of donuts?!

Michael

[Jim McDougall]

Hi Michael,
Thank you for these fantastic rare items of ordnance! (sorry about the dumb bomb story .
Like Mark, I'd never heard of incendiary quoits either, and these items really put perspective into the warfare of the times. Whats really amazing is that these have survived, I've never even seen them in catalogs.
Outstanding material!

All the best,
Jim