The Death of a Relic Hunter
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The Death of a Relic Hunter
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Re: The Death of a Relic Hunter
#2Re: The Death of a Relic Hunter
#3I hunted for WW 1 artifacts with my father all through the 1980s in France. We found a lot and I still have a lot. Since this was way before 9/11, we were able to smuggle old, old artillery shells, potato mashers (no wooden handle), and other types of grenades in our checked luggage (plane belly). One interesting piece is a rusted helmet with bullet hole. The metal is flayed inward where the wearer’s skull rests. No idea if anyone was wearing it when it was shot.
Re: The Death of a Relic Hunter
#4I hunted for WW 1 artifacts with my father all through the 1980s in France. We found a lot and I still have a lot. Since this was way before 9/11, we were able to smuggle old, old artillery shells, potato mashers (no wooden handle), and other types of grenades in our checked luggage (plane belly). One interesting piece is a rusted helmet with bullet hole. The metal is flayed inward where the wearer’s skull rests. No…
Airport-security aside, didn't you have reservations about carrying around unexploded ordnance, especially on a plane?
Re: The Death of a Relic Hunter
#5Interesting side story about Bill “helping” a friend who had his life completely stolen back in 2012. So strange the thieves knew just where to look for things: https://www.ajc.com/news/local/atlanta-man-struggles-continu...
Re: The Death of a Relic Hunter
#6I hunted for WW 1 artifacts with my father all through the 1980s in France. We found a lot and I still have a lot. Since this was way before 9/11, we were able to smuggle old, old artillery shells, potato mashers (no wooden handle), and other types of grenades in our checked luggage (plane belly). One interesting piece is a rusted helmet with bullet hole. The metal is flayed inward where the wearer’s skull rests. No…
You could still probably send a lot of that in a chest as ship cargo and it would make it through okay.
Re: The Death of a Relic Hunter
#7Interesting side story about Bill “helping” a friend who had his life completely stolen back in 2012. So strange the thieves knew just where to look for things: https://www.ajc.com/news/local/atlanta-man-struggles-continu...
Bill would give you the shirt off his back (then steal it from you later that night).
Re: The Death of a Relic Hunter
#8I hunted for WW 1 artifacts with my father all through the 1980s in France. We found a lot and I still have a lot. Since this was way before 9/11, we were able to smuggle old, old artillery shells, potato mashers (no wooden handle), and other types of grenades in our checked luggage (plane belly). One interesting piece is a rusted helmet with bullet hole. The metal is flayed inward where the wearer’s skull rests. No…
Somewhere I read that Italy still had "WWI casualties" up through the 1980ies because of people picking up unexploded ordnance and dying when it exploded.
Re: The Death of a Relic Hunter
#9I hunted for WW 1 artifacts with my father all through the 1980s in France. We found a lot and I still have a lot. Since this was way before 9/11, we were able to smuggle old, old artillery shells, potato mashers (no wooden handle), and other types of grenades in our checked luggage (plane belly). One interesting piece is a rusted helmet with bullet hole. The metal is flayed inward where the wearer’s skull rests. No…
Airport-security aside, didn't you have reservations about carrying around unexploded ordnance, especially on a plane?
Presumably this was inert, otherwise I think you'd be extremely stupid to do something like this. Even over inert/historical military hardware like this people can go to jail in many parts of the world.
Re: The Death of a Relic Hunter
#10I hunted for WW 1 artifacts with my father all through the 1980s in France. We found a lot and I still have a lot. Since this was way before 9/11, we were able to smuggle old, old artillery shells, potato mashers (no wooden handle), and other types of grenades in our checked luggage (plane belly). One interesting piece is a rusted helmet with bullet hole. The metal is flayed inward where the wearer’s skull rests. No…
Somewhere I read that Italy still had "WWI casualties" up through the 1980ies because of people picking up unexploded ordnance and dying when it exploded.
I've heard this is still true in France [1]. I wouldn't be surprised if it was still true in Italy as well. And England, Germany, all over the place really.
Photos of truly massive piles of spent artillery shell casings helped this click for me [2]. Even if the artillery detonates 99% of the time, we're still talking about hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of unexploded shells.
People will be stumbling into unexploded butterfly mines and cluster munitions in Ukraine for generations.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNIBE64CAgs
[2] https://64.media.tumblr.com/37a01168a1c386fa1657ae35ce0d0508...
