VENTURA : Yard Sale Purchase Packs a Real Charge

John Lommen knew his $2 yard sale purchase was a bargain--he just didn’t know that it could end with a bang.

But as soon as he showed the four-inch-high aluminum cylinder to a weapons expert Friday, the man advised Lommen to call the sheriff’s bomb squad immediately.

“It was a fuse detonator for a land mine, and it was live,” said Richard Clark, a salesman at Battlefield Surplus, the store where Lommen brought his purchase.

Ventura police and sheriff’s deputies were called Friday afternoon to Ms. Teagarden, Lommen’s antiques and collectibles shop in downtown Ventura, to dispose of the device. The vintage World War II detonator contained a small amount of explosive and will be destroyed, officials said.

Lommen, 44, of Ventura, said he found the detonator Friday morning inside a box of odds and ends at a yard sale on Kalorama Drive. He put the device inside a basket on his bike and then rode back to his shop with his find, Lommen said.

It wasn’t until he showed the detonator to Clark that he realized he had placed himself in danger. Clark told him that if the device exploded, it could have taken off a hand, Lommen said. Clark also told him the safety pin was still in place, but that did little to allay Lommen’s fear.

“I started sweating and then I thought I heard it ticking,” he said. “But it was just psychological.”

After placing the device behind trash cans at the rear of his store, Lommen called authorities to remove it.

He said he doesn’t like to think about what could have happened if the chemicals inside the explosive had become unstable during his bike ride.

“That would have started the Fourth of July off with a bang, huh?” he said.