Actually not worth much in terms of money, but a cool find

Hi guys,

last weekend we went magnet fishing at a small water gate, not expecting much, but then found around 20 to 25 kilos of fired 20x139mm anti aircraft shells.
These aren't worth much as they are made of steel, but it's a very cool find over here in Germany where these things are very hard to come by. Police even said we could keep them :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxOsRY_cusw

Very cool. Great find. Thanks for the video !!

That's pretty neat. I have to say I've never seen that done, or ever heard of it before. So what were you hoping to find? I envision finding some discarded murder weapon or something. But aside from that, it seems that anything of value would be non-ferrous.

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but then found around 20 to 25 kilos of fired 20x139mm anti aircraft shells.

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I'm no expert on military ordnance, but it looks to me like those are still belted together, which would mean that they're not "fired", but yet-to-be-fired. That would mean that, one, they still have the gunpowder in the casings, and two, my understanding is that 20mm shells are actually cannon shells, that explode, as opposed to just slugs like bullets from smaller caliber weapons, so the shells themselves could potentially still be explosive. Every now and then there's a story in the news about somebody getting killed over there when they hit an unexploded bomb with an excavator.

Did you try hitting them real hard with a hammer?

On edit: I thought about it, and decided maybe I should add, Don't hit them with a hammer...

Ditchdigger- Perhaps the German weapons kept the fired case still on the link. Most that I can see in the pix appear not to have projectiles on them but yes be careful of any that look intact. I wonder what they would look like after being soaked in some sort of rust removal solvent?

I wonder if all German small cannon ammo had steel cases during the war or if they changed from brass to steel later on as materials became harder to obtain? Most German mechanized equipment by mid-war or so were being run on diesel or gas derived from coal. Germany had coal reserves but almost no petroleum of its own.

maybe u should put it on eBay- u could be surprised by people who are prepared to pay good money for it.

stranger things have happened...

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Ditchdigger- Perhaps the German weapons kept the fired case still on the link. Most that I can see in the pix appear not to have projectiles on them but yes be careful of any that look intact.

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Hmmm...After watching it again, you might be right about the projectiles being absent. Interesting.

I have a couple of 37mm shells here, just the projectiles, not the brass. They were in a garage I demo'd. The story the owner told was that someplace nearby, they'd built some sort of facility, maybe having something to do with nuclear technology of some sort (I don't remember exactly), and that they mixed a whole bunch of surplus 37mm shells into the poured concrete walls, for the added mass, or something. He'd worked on the project, and brought a few home.

The tips unscrew, and they're empty inside, so they're definitely inert.

I used to have a spent 20 mm projectile and case (looked brass) from a 1970s Army vulcan aa cannon. Someone I knew used to be a gunner on one that was amounted on the old Vietnam era M113 apc. He said the thing used to sounds like a big fart going off because the rate of fire was so fast (something like 6,000 rounds a minute out of the 6 barrels on that thing). I used to have some 50 cal casings and bullets that I found at our old Boy Scout camp down along the Missouri River. During WWII that area was used as a strafing range for fighters. I gave them all to a friend down in sw MO to see if he could sell them at a flea market. Haven't seen them or the money since ;)

TrashureSeeker- What part of Germany do you live in?? My people on my dad's side came from sw Germany (forgot the old state) about 200 years ago. They first went to south Russia to take up the generous offer the Tsar had at the time for good German farmers and then after about 2 generations split for the US when the Russians changed the rules. There's a lot of people of German ancestry in South and North Dakota. The Germans from Russia society has its center I think in Bismarck, ND.

What was the water body you were fishing the old 20 mm cannon casings out of?? A drainage ditch or a channelized stream? It looked pretty straight to be natural.

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Originally Posted by HipoGear

That's pretty neat. I have to say I've never seen that done, or ever heard of it before. So what were you hoping to find? I envision finding some discarded murder weapon or something. But aside from that, it seems that anything of value would be non-ferrous.

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We just do it for fun and to see what we get out of the water. In city canals we also fish out some coins but not much, so this is really just a hobby.

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Originally Posted by Ditchdigger

I'm no expert on military ordnance, but it looks to me like those are still belted together, which would mean that they're not "fired", but yet-to-be-fired. That would mean that, one, they still have the gunpowder in the casings, and two, my understanding is that 20mm shells are actually cannon shells, that explode, as opposed to just slugs like bullets from smaller caliber weapons, so the shells themselves could potentially still be explosive. Every now and then there's a story in the news about somebody getting killed over there when they hit an unexploded bomb with an excavator.

Did you try hitting them real hard with a hammer?

On edit: I thought about it, and decided maybe I should add, Don't hit them with a hammer...

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"Guy on internet says hit the potentially explosive thing with a hammer, let's do it!" :)
I managed to clean one up that has the full markings intact. Apparently these aren't WWII as I first thought but Belgian made between 1980 and 1998. You were right about the belt links normally coming off after firing, which leads me to assume these belonged to a collector that picked them up on a training ground and relinked them for display, then either he had to get rid of them or died and his relatives threw them into the water. All of them are cleaned out by the water in case there was still powder left in them so they are safe to handle.

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Originally Posted by DakotaRog

Ditchdigger- Perhaps the German weapons kept the fired case still on the link. Most that I can see in the pix appear not to have projectiles on them but yes be careful of any that look intact. I wonder what they would look like after being soaked in some sort of rust removal solvent?

I wonder if all German small cannon ammo had steel cases during the war or if they changed from brass to steel later on as materials became harder to obtain? Most German mechanized equipment by mid-war or so were being run on diesel or gas derived from coal. Germany had coal reserves but almost no petroleum of its own.

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They are modern and made out of steel, strangely enough the shells themselves don't rust, only the belt links. How would I go best about cleaning these without destroying them?

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Originally Posted by msmoorad

maybe u should put it on eBay- u could be surprised by people who are prepared to pay good money for it.

stranger things have happened...

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Actually not a bad idea, I will take a look and see if it's worth it. I was thinking some sort of DIY project using them like candleholders or something.

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Originally Posted by Ditchdigger

Hmmm...After watching it again, you might be right about the projectiles being absent. Interesting.

I have a couple of 37mm shells here, just the projectiles, not the brass. They were in a garage I demo'd. The story the owner told was that someplace nearby, they'd built some sort of facility, maybe having something to do with nuclear technology of some sort (I don't remember exactly), and that they mixed a whole bunch of surplus 37mm shells into the poured concrete walls, for the added mass, or something. He'd worked on the project, and brought a few home.

The tips unscrew, and they're empty inside, so they're definitely inert.

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Now that's a way to add mass to concrete I hear about ALL the time :)

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Originally Posted by DakotaRog

I used to have a spent 20 mm projectile and case (looked brass) from a 1970s Army vulcan aa cannon. Someone I knew used to be a gunner on one that was amounted on the old Vietnam era M113 apc. He said the thing used to sounds like a big fart going off because the rate of fire was so fast (something like 6,000 rounds a minute out of the 6 barrels on that thing). I used to have some 50 cal casings and bullets that I found at our old Boy Scout camp down along the Missouri River. During WWII that area was used as a strafing range for fighters. I gave them all to a friend down in sw MO to see if he could sell them at a flea market. Haven't seen them or the money since ;)

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These types of people are the worst, right next to "sorry that I broke what you lent me, but I will not compensate you."

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Originally Posted by DakotaRog

TrashureSeeker- What part of Germany do you live in?? My people on my dad's side came from sw Germany (forgot the old state) about 200 years ago. They first went to south Russia to take up the generous offer the Tsar had at the time for good German farmers and then after about 2 generations split for the US when the Russians changed the rules. There's a lot of people of German ancestry in South and North Dakota. The Germans from Russia society has its center I think in Bismarck, ND.

What was the water body you were fishing the old 20 mm cannon casings out of?? A drainage ditch or a channelized stream? It looked pretty straight to be natural.

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Northern Germany, near Hamburg. The name "Bismarck" for a city is a pretty good sign for German immigrants :)
It's one of these small drainage things that seperate farm fields quite often.

It looks like we have a new category for the 'Scrap metal Olympics'.

"[ Magnet fishing. ]"

Gold Silver and Copper medals...



Dakota, you know what they say about when you lend someone $20 and never see them again..

Its a 'Good investment'.....

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Originally Posted by eesakiwi

It looks like we have a new category for the 'Scrap metal Olympics'.

"[ Magnet fishing. ]"

Gold Silver and Copper medals...



Dakota, you know what they say about when you lend someone $20 and never see them again..

Its a 'Good investment'.....

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I like that saying.

As for the olympics I am all up for that, I think I have found 4 bicycle rims so far so I can almost build the five rings needed for the logo.