My Find of the Year - German Glasmine 43
Well this is one of these items that I have been worried about since it was posted and was not going to be happy until it was in my hands. Today was finally the day it arrived directly from Romania. I will start off with the pics of it from Ebay. I had just won a top plate and the mid metal plate from a Glasmine and was just doing my normal searching when I cam across this. I initially went past it but came back to it because I saw something...Was listed as "Antique German glass bowl with Voila flowers" The first pic was the lead pic in the auction to:
I almost fell over! I couldn't believe my luck of finding a Glasmine on ebay and the seller was not aware of what she had. Was great to see a complete un cracked body, top plate and the very thin sheer plate. I sent her a message to see if she would accept an offer for it (as it was bidding at the time) to which she promptly said add another $10 and she would be happy! So all in all it cost me $78 packed and posted to Australia!
I came home today to find a big white box waiting for me which I tore open to find the mine had made its journey from Romania to Australia in one piece. I was worried for the sheer plate but it survived well due to the very good packing from the lady. She had told me that she had found it in an antique store in German years ago, was one of her favorite pieces and she loved the Voila flowers. They didnt last long with me, lol, they were chipping badly anyways and I just helped them along. Nice to see wartime equipment in a postwar use but I wanted this one to be back to its wartime look. Here are the pics after taking it out of the box:
Some History:
The Glasmine 43 was an anti-personnel mine used by the Germans during World War II. In order to make the mine less detectable, the entire body is made from glass. Aside from being less detectable, the use of less metal was beneficial because it saved this valuable war resource for other uses. At first, only mechanical igniters were used; with later models, chemical igniters would be used. Even today there still are minefields of the Glasmine 43 in the "Nationalpark Eifel". In 1944 and 1945 11 million mines were produced, at the end of the war 9.7 million were still in the stocks.
My example is mostly complete now. I have fitted the Hebelzunder or 'Boreshead' Fuse, marked 'opq44' but also have one of the SF6 Bakelite chemical ignighters (Both are inert).I used the metal plate I had won on a separate auction for this. I just need to make a repro explosive block from wood and wrap in wax paper and its going to be close to complete.
I also have a second top plate left over as I got another with the metal fuse plate. If anyone needs one let me know as I will be putting it on my store in the near future.
Cheers
Jason
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