Dug This up and a little concerned can anyone identify ?

[leesmiffo]

Hello People, My dad is a builder but has been working on his own yard in sheffield and has dug this up and im quite convinced its an artillery shell and may well still be live. Can anyone confirm what it might be. The end where it was caught by the digger and more worryingly potentially the fuse is like a tough fibre material the rest of the case seems to be badly corroded cast or steel. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

[Nitram]

Pro-tip, think it might be live? Don't move it, don't take it out of the ground to take a picture, call the police. Quite frankly you don't want to be on the 6 o'clock news.

Welcome to the forum by the way; I'm sure a more experienced member will chime in soon.

Nitram

[leesmiffo]

Thankyou and hello, To be honest it was moved because the yard is full of junk, and theres allsorts coming up even a vw beetle back wheel with the suspension still attached. So it got put to one side with all the other rubbish. But im not going anywhere near it now and i will inform my dad immediately. If we had suspected it to be what we now think it is it would have definately stayed in the ground. any information would still be great though as anything ww1 or 2 fascinates me.

[Adrian Stevenson]

Welcome to the forum!

My advice is to call the Police.

It is too corroded to ID.

Cheers, Ade.

[Eric Zentner]

Yikes welcome to the forum and you should do as Ade says.

Eric

[Wagriff]

Right now, all that you can definitely say, is that it Is a Shell and it has it's Cap intact and in place, so you Have to assume that it may very well be live. As Ade said, call the authorities Immediately.

[GasMasksUK]

I agree with all of what has been said already, incase you find another one or something else you're unsure about on the same site, leave it as you find it and contact the police who will then contact EOD who'll deal with in a safe and controlled manner

Thanks

Danny

[Steve T]

It is too badly corroded to be ID'd at this stage but looks to be a relatively intact artillery shell. From the tape it may be a 3.7 inch AA shell but you really can't tell.

You need to call the police and stop moving it around to take pictures of it. Get it somewhere safe, in an area where no-one will stumble on it by accident, or drive over it in a digger/dumper truck/car/lorry.

Tell your dad that if he ever finds anything like this again to immediately stop work, leave it exactly where it was found and call the police.

Steve T

[leesmiffo]

Yeah its out of the way of people and vehicles. Like i said i wouldnt have touched it at all if i were certain it was a shell. But due to the amount of building waste spanning a 100 years being dug up, we moved it thinking nothing of it only when i had a look at it then googled pictures of shells did i realise, it looked very similar,

So i took a few pictures just to see if i could make sure on here and put it as far away from the local buildings as i could. The next people to touch it will be the disposal people. The only reason it got found and not weighed in as scrap is that i love looking at old stuff and working out what it is and when i realised it looked like a shell i started being very careful.

The police are being informed first thing in the morning, nobody will be anywhere near it until then. Thankyou for the information, much appreciated. I think its shocked my dad that he didnt realise at first what it might be.

[leesmiffo]

If it is an anti aircraft shell, is iot possible that it didnt go off and then simply fell back down. or is it more likely to be a souvenir brought back by somone form the war and buried when they found out they could be in serious trouble for having it ? Im just mulling over the possibilities as it fascinates me.