Vtg DeMoulin Bros Masonic Fraternal Club Initiation Exploding Spanker Paddle

Description

Welcome to our company, "The Bomb Shelter", one of the nation's largest stores of its kind selling vintage and antique items from all eras. eBay local pickup is available during business hours, please contact if you need this option!
HERE WE HAVE:
A vintage or possibly antique wooden spanker made by DeMoulin Bros. of Greenville, Illinois! From what I understand, these were used at fraternal club initiations? It's a wooden handle with a wider head that opens and closes at the end. It originally would have come with cartridges of black powder that would explode when the open end would snap closed during "use". We don't have any of the cartridges for it.
CONDITION:
Being sold as is, for display! It seems to be missing a spring near the open end and a screw or nail that would hold it in place. There's tape on the handle, I didn't try removing it so I'm not sure if it's holding things together or just there for grip. Fabric side has some discoloration. Split in the wood near the end of the "clapper" piece. Some discoloration, scuffs, scratches, and general wear from age and presumably use! As noted in the description, I don't have any cartridges for it.
Will come exactly as shown, so please see photos!
MEASUREMENTS:
Whole piece measures approximately 20 1/2" long. The paddle end is about 3 3/4" wide.
SHIPPING:
Calculated. Please view shipping options, there may be a better (faster, more affordable, etc.) carrier available to your zip code than what is listed first.
ADDITIONAL CHARGES NOTICE:
This item will have an additional packing charge of
{{detail_product_description}}.00
added into the shipping and handling fees shown above due to the extra packing required for safe shipping to your location.
If the fees are {{detail_product_description}}.00, then no additional costs have been added.
YOUR SHIPPING CHARGES:
We do not add or inflate shipping charges on your purchase. We use the eBay shipping system for calculating shipping costs. If eBay is off over 10%, we will either refund to you or pay the additional shipping costs ourselves.
Thank you for looking and please Email through eBay with any questions!
Please Note: All sales shipped or picked up in Ohio will have
SALES TAX
collected. All international or Canadian shipping/ delivery does not include any taxes, import taxes, or duty fees and may have additional customs fees by the shipping carrier that may be due on delivery.
RETURNS:
We hope you are completely satisfied with your purchase but if you choose to make a return for reasons not pertaining to a defective or damaged item then the buyer shall be responsible for shipping charges both ways - only the initial purchase price will be refunded. When items are returned that had shipping included in the eBay purchase price “FREE SHIPPING”, the actual shipping will not be refunded when item is returned due to the fact that no shipping is really free.  In the case of a damaged item we will expect the buyer to contact us and to assist in filing an insurance claim in order to be compensated for the loss. The "not as described" return option is not to be used to resolve damaged item cases. As stated above, the pictures provided are the description - the buyer is responsible for being aware of what they are purchasing - as long as the item delivered matches the photographs in the listing we will consider the item to match the description.