In 1977 when I first started in museums I ended up disposing of a
number of live rounds, hand grenades, cannon balls and live artillery
rounds.  It was a remarkable experience.  I made two major errors.  Some
of the stuff, American Civil War vintage could have been disarmed - as I
later found out.  Some of the stuff, particilarly WWII Japanese grenades
I should have never touched!  The munitions sargent for the National
Guard unit in our community when shown them turned white and asked me to
slowly walk out of his office with them.  He later explained that such
grenades were often booby trapped.  We asked Bomb disposal unit from a
nearbye army base to remove the material.
        Our possesion of the material could in itself had lead to a major
diaster.  Our museum suffered a fire two floors above its location.  If
the fire had spread lower the chances of resulting explosions killing
firefighters was quite high.
        This stuff needs very careful treatment by highly knowledgeable people

Greg Koos
McLean County Historical Society
>

> Yesterday, Bill Galvini wrote:
> >For a study of the problems of handling, disarming, and storing
> >potentially explosive artifacts such as cannon balls, hand grenades,
> >bullets, or even larger items of military ordnance, the curatorial staff
> >at the Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport, Washington, would appreciate
> >hearing from museums which have experience, either good or bad, with
> >these items.
>