Wow what a shame, I have 1 thats been sitting in my garage for years, never thought twice about it.
Article doesn't say and maybe they don't know but I'm guessing he pulled the pin to go through the motions of what it would be like to operate a real grenade, little did he know it was real.
Or it could have been dropped who knows, decades old explosives are known for being highly unstable.

You would think that when things like this are put on the surplus market that there would be a hole drilled through the bottom so there would never be any doubt about its functionality.


Teen is killed by WWII-era hand grenade he bought at North Carolina antique store which detonated two days before Christmas

The unidentified teen was killed when an MK2 grenade exploded on December 23 in Abingdon, Virginia
The grenade was reportedly purchased at the Fancy Flea Antique Mall in Shallotte, North Carolina, on June 13
Neither the vendor nor the buyer believed it was functioning at the time
The ATF is searching for other explosives that may have been sold at that store

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...grenade-North-Carolina-antique-mall.html

In the early 1980'a a boy in my son's class brought a live RPG (rocket propelled grenade) to school for show & tell. The teacher cleared the class and school when he saw it and the bomb squad or EOD took it away.

I can remember in my teens seeing (probably live) grenades that my friend's fathers brought back from WWII. Several German "potato masher" types or Japanese types.

WOW!!!
The dummy ones are bringing hundreds of dollars nowadays, wonder how a teen could get one from a flea market.
Ed

Unexploded ordnance kills for many years after you'd think it was a dud.

- A few years ago here in NC, a guy blew himself up trying to open a fused Civil War round shot that had failed to explode and was dug up at a battlefield. Siting on his driveway trying to chisel out the fuse.

- WWI battlefield are still claiming victims in Europe, mostly from either farmers plowing fields or dumb tourists digging out shells exposed by rain. The vast Verdun battlefield is very lethal.

- WWII sea mines or large bombs turn up often.

Here is my garage grenade, don't know what model it is but it is for sure inert, bottom drilled out

It's kind of hard to believe you could stumble on a live WWll hand grenade at a flea market today.
More likely the teen bought a $10.00 fake one, and was trying to make a live one, and it didn't turn out good.
Also strange it took the teen 6 months to check out the pin. ?????
Ed

I take it the one I posted from my garage is a $10 fake one ?
If so, I wonder why they felt the need to drill out the bottom, or is it more likely a legit, inert grenade but relatively modern ?

No telling if we'll find out any more details about this, I assume the scene was a mess and they are piecing it together, so to speak. Pin pull most likely scenario but not necessarily, could have dropped it and detonation followed.

Doug

Not saying yours is fake. There were several styles of the Pineapple grenade, all marked different. You would have to investigate.
Some were solid bottoms that were drilled. Some were plug bottom that had a hole with threads.
Yours could be original. The spoon looks repo, never say one shaped like that. Could be a odd fuse, or spoon replace.
The one pictured in your article post looks fine, and they are bringing $300 - $400 and up, ???
I have two, both repos with original fuses , inert, and all hardware.
Ed

My grenade is loaded with markings

RFX 737J and on the top [spoon?] Fuse M20 ME 187J 003-018

Made in China [joke]

Doug
Usually the RFX marked ones were genuine US practice grenades. There were no threads at the bottom hole, just cast smooth.
You would have to do more study on the fuse markings to determine date,
A nice practice body.
Ed